Germany?s Introspective Wars
Colonial and Domestic Conflict in the German Press? Discourse on Race
1904-1907
Master?s Thesis
Presented to
Comparative History Department
Brandeis University
Professor Alice Kelikian, Advisor
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
By
Andrew Deas
April, 2009
ii
ABSTRACT
Germany?s Introspective Wars
A thesis presented to the Comparative History Department
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Brandeis University
Waltham, Massachusetts
By Andrew Deas
German imperialism has recently drawn the attention of many scholars, making the topic
one of increasing relevance in academic inquiry. Working from the assumption of several recent
German historians that racial language was laden with alternative meanings and influenced by
various non-racial discourses, this study seeks to identify some of the conversations undergirding
racial language in the press. Reading closely the coverage of Germany?s two most significant
colonial wars?the Herero uprising in German South West Africa and the Maji-Maji War in
German East Africa?from a broad ideological and geographic sample of popular newspapers, I
arrived at two conclusions. First, racial language was evident throughout press coverage of
colonial conflict. Second, this language was inextricably linked with alternative conversations
concerning politics and society in Germany itself. The colonies and colonial war offered
Germans another way to discuss domestic issues. In this way racial language, whether overt or
not, was rarely just about race, but it helped Germans discuss their own society and several
issues entirely unrelated to race.
iii
Table of Contents
Introduction??????????????????????? ????... .......................3
A ?Place in the Sun????????????????? ......................................................12
German Southwest Africa?????????????? ? ???? ?????.. 14
German East Africa???????????????? ? ????... ....................17
The Press..??????????????????????? ? ???? ?????.. 22
A Rising Power????. ????????????? ............................................22
The Racism of the Press: Ethnography???????? .? .........................................26
The Search for Answers???????????? ...?... ...........................................33
Beyond Racial Language????????????????? ..........................................44
The Politics of Colonial Conflict and Race??????? ...........................................45
Native Conflict and the Masses of Europe??????? ? ??? ??????? 58
Conclusion?????????????????????? .............................................67
Bibliography?????????????????????? ..........................................69
As debate in Europe over the entrance of Turkey into the European fold continues
unabated, the argument has often become tainted by the continent?s legacy of racism.
Outspoken opponents of the effort to expand the European Union have been accused of
harboring a ?clash of civilizations?1 mentality, drawing cries of racial insularity?widely
regarded as a taboo worldview for most in Europe. These contemporary fears of Turkish
membership in the European Union, however, reflect a variety of other concerns?racial,
ethnic, and cultural, as well as social concerns. Similarly, demographic data about Eu-
rope?s ?aging? has elicited contradicting responses, from a racist desire to limit immi-
grants to fears over social and economic decline. Europe continues to suffer from its ra-
cial pasts; the elegies lamenting modern racism echo through the halls of European par-
liaments. Perhaps no country suffers this more than Germany, for which the Holocaust
represents the culmination of a century of racism. Many scholars of European and Ger-
man racism study the phenomenon as a progression toward the atrocious designs of Nazi
Germany. Yet this kind of study is too convenient; teleological explanations always are.
Keeping in mind the intersectionalities of race, politics, and society, this study seeks to
complicate this Sonderweg of racism by suggesting that publicly expressed racism in the
press was rarely motivated purely by race.
This study began as an attempt to find the impact of colonial conflict on German
notions of race. It sought to look at an ideological, political and geographical spread of
news media to accomplish this. The scope of this project, however, proved too vast to
1 Anthony Browne, ?Turkey left out in cold as Austria digs in heels over EU entry talks,? The Times Octo-
ber 3, 2005.
4
give the topic justice. In any case, the research was not wasted. In looking at the press
and the predictable language the press used to refer to the German colonies? native inha-
bitants, I found that these passages were laden with other concerns including the political,
national, and social anxieties that manifest through the racial language of the press. This
language surrounded news coming form Germany?s colonies, specifically German East
Africa and German South West Africa. Closely reading this press coverage from the be-
ginning of each conflict and the most salient event in each one led to the conclusion racial
language had greater meaning than the chauvinist veneer suggested. Obviously, these un-
derlying meanings had political and ideological implications. Thus, the newspapers con-
sulted?the Dresdner Journal, the Neue Preussische Zeitung, the Frankfurter Zeitung,
the Coburger Zeitung, and the Berliner Volksblatt: Vorw?rts?constituted a broad spec-
trum of political persuasion and geographical spread. Reading closely into these months
of newspapers offered a significant amount of information, rhetoric and ideology. It also
offered insight into the underlying rhetoric of race. This study fills a significant hole in
the scholarship on German colonialism in two ways.
German colonialism has only recently become a major focus of contemporary re-
search in German historical scholarship. It was initially viewed as being of minimal signi-
ficance because it comprised only three unspectacular decades at the turn of the twentieth
century. Not only was it not an important aspect of German history, it was similarly in-
significant in comparison to the larger, more enduring colonial holdings of Britain and
France, and prior to that, Spain and Portugal. Those few scholars that did engage with the
subject tended to focus on the political and diplomatic aspects of colonial acquisition.
Dawson suggested that the German rivalry in foreign and diplomatic issues with England
5
was the catalyst to colonialism?it was tied to challenges on other geopolitical fronts.
Hans-Ulrich Wehler averred that Bismarckian colonialism was a reaction to internal pres-
sures and reluctance to reforms rather than a focused foreign action (Au?enpolitik als In-
nenpolitik),2 but others have suggested that colonial policy was hardly central to Bis-
marck?s foreign stance, let alone his domestic designs. Still, the geopolitical impacts?
shifting alliances and colonial maneuvering?of the entrance of Germany into the coloni-
al competition were realized only by a few. The story of Germany?s colonial past has
changed considerably in the past hundred years. Of late, although a major figure, Bis-
marck has taken a back seat to nationalism, capitalism, and pressure groups in Germany?s
colonial history. Most scholarship, as a result, has tended to focus on the composition,
organization, and other quantifiable aspects of the colonial authorities and the colonists.3
This, however, was soon to change.
With the cultural turn of the eighties and the ?colonial turn? of the nineties, Ger-
man imperialism caught the attention of many important scholars. Many of their newer
scholarship considered the origins and the manifestations of the ?colonial imagination.?4
These cultural analyses of colonial literature, expositions of anthropological science, and
intellectual histories tended to tiptoe around the actual experience of colonialism. Rather,
2 Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ?Bismarck's Imperialism 1862-1890,?Past and Present 48 (1970): 119-155. He also
mentions this in the chapter on colonialism in his condensed look at Germany during the Second Reich,
Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918 (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994).
3 L. H. Gugnan and Peter Duigan, The Rulers of German Africa, 1884-1914, (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1977). These authors, in intricate charts and tables, quantify the German colonial experience. They
look at the composition of the colonists themselves, examine the military make-up, and relate the economic
realities of each of Germany?s African colonies, while devoting only a final chapter to the social changes
experienced by the Africans. Even then, however, the economic aspects are central to the focus. Another
one is Hausen, Karin. Deutsche Kolonialherrschaft in Afrika. Wirtschaftsinteressen und Kolonialverwal-
tung in Kamerun vor 1914. Zurich: Atlantis-Verlag, 1970. This book seeks to discover the means and me-
thods of German rule in Cameroon.
4 Robert Holub, for example, discusses Nietzsche?s desire for colonies in order to generate a European civi-
lization in his essay ?Nietzsche?s Colonialist Imagination: Nueva Germania, Good Europeanism, and Great
Politics.?
6
they told the story of the periods preceding and following active colonialism and to deal
almost exclusively with the colonists themselves, not the German nation at home. Some
scholars have written about gender and heroism in the colonial context5; others have dis-
cussed racial perceptions in the colonies; and some have examined the fantastical Nazi
desires to regain their former colonial holdings.6 The field is rife with cultural analyses of
racial and gender construction and the colonial project in the broader scope of a German
mentality, but these are rarely connected to the political reality of Germany itself.7
Exceptional in this respect is the work of Isabel Hull, who seeks to establish the
link between the colonial excesses of Germany and the impacts on Germany itself. In
Hull?s opinion the colonies became a proving ground for the programmatic militarism
which manifested not only in both the eradication of the Herero people in South West
Africa but also in the logic behind the Schlieffen Plan and Falkenhayn?s plan to bleed the
will out of the French during World War I. She argues that the colonies played a major
role in the development of German politics and structures; however exaggerated, this has
forced scholars to reconsider how colonialism impacted the metropole and how it af-
fected Germany.8 This study significantly suggested that, rather than being a mono-
5 Gesine Krueger writes about the experience of women during the war against the Herero in West Africa in
1904; Sara Lennox writes about gender and race with specific attention to colonial literature?s admonition
against miscegenation and to the un-feminizing process that takes place in the female colonial experience;
Frederieke Eigler discusses similar trends but in an earlier period and using literature written by a woman,
Freida von B?low. Birthe Kundrus has also discussed women?s colonial organizations in her chapter from
Kaiserreich Transnational, entitled ?Weiblischer Kulturimperialismus. Die imperialistischen
Frauenverbande des Kaiserreichs.? Lora Wildenthal has written her book German Women for Empire
1884-1945 on women?s enthusiasm for empire.
6 Sabine Hake writes about Africans and the colonial impulse in films from the Third Reich; Lisa Gates
discusses Leni Reifenstahl?s photography of African natives; and Grosse, Campt, and de Faria discuss the
influx of Africans (for various reasons) from the colonies and their effect on the politics of the Imperial
Imagination, especially notions of foreignness.
7 Russell A. Berman, Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture (Lincoln: Universi-
ty of Nebraska Press, 1998). Berman discusses all of these themes in underlining the enlightenment under-
pinnings of German imperial culture.
8 Isabel Hull, Absolute Destruction, (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2004).
7
dimensional dynamic, the relationship between Germany and its colonies was dialectic-
al?the colonies impacted Germany in equal measure. Zimmerman has combined this
notion of colonial discourse and culture, noting that the language of class and race
blended in criticisms of German audiences at ethnographic expositions.9 These studies,
however, are rare, and it is to this history of influential colonies and the two-way colonial
relationship that I seek to add to the imperial historiography.
Each of Germany?s colonies has its own historiography. The corpus of written
history surrounding German East Africa is significant, but by no means complete. Recent
scholarship by Philipa S?ldenwagner suggests that colonists and Africans in East Africa
had less defined notions of central authority. Natives and Europeans were in constant ne-
gotiations over power, each winning out in certain situations, because of the uncertain
and ambiguous support offered to the colonists by the German government. Colonists had
to enter into a discourse of power with the Africans in order to survive.10 In this regard, it
appears that race was secondary to economic sustenance and improvement. Other scho-
lars discuss colonial literature and travel journals, but never only in the context of Ger-
man East Africa. John Iliffe, before that, told the story of Germany?s complicated, discur-
sive rule over East Africa.11 Far from complete, the scholarship surrounding Germany?s
hegemony over East Africa could benefit from a study of the colony?s impact on the me-
tropole. The colony to the South West, however, has a more nuanced historiography.
9Andrew Zimmerman, ?Turning Native? Anthropology, German Colonialism, and the Paradoxes of the
?Acclimatization Question? 1885-1914,? In Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of
Empire, edited by H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Also,
Dirk van Laak, ?ber alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: C.H.
Beck Verlag, 2005). Van Laak serves as a good overview of German imperialism, but he also seeks to un-
derline the national impulses behind the rise and radicalization of the German imperial project.
10 Philipa S?ldenwagner, Spaces of Negotiation: European Settlement and Settlers in German East Africa
1900-1914 (Munich: Martin Meidenbauer, 2006).
11 John Iliffe, Tanganyika Under German Rule (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1973)
8
While Hull?s account attempted to identify the source of dangerous German mili-
tarism in West Africa, other scholars have written about the events of the war against the
Herero and their implications. J?rgen Zimmerer has contributed to a translated volume of
essays on the genocide against the Herero and Nama people during and following the war
of 1904. Some of these essays relate the specifics of the war, colonial policy, and the
atrocious actions of German administration, and others discuss the ?imperial imagina-
tion? and the racial policies that came with it.12 Some have criticized it for suggesting a
teleology,13 a Sonderweg to the Holocaust, but it also does not consider German politics
or society; native policy, it seems, was the creation only of Trotha and the settlers. Ger-
many simply enabled these actions. Regarding the creation of native administration,
George Steinmetz focuses exclusively on West Africa as the African paradigm in his
trans-regional approach. His study has revealed the radically different colonial adminis-
trative attitudes that arose in Germany?s widespread colonies as a result of differing pre-
colonial notions of race, concepts that drastically changed with the colonial experience.14
Yet, he does not discuss the prospect of multiple notions of race existing in Africa itself;
Germany acquired many African colonies. Thus, it appears as though the recent historio-
graphies of these colonies and of German conceptions of the ?other? and of race have of-
ten intertwined.
Race has constituted a major topic of scholarship for a variety of disciplines. As
regards the history of racism, and unfortunately its unavoidable destination, George
12 J?rgen Zimmerer, ed., Genocide in German South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904-1908 and its
Aftermath, (Monmouth, Wales: Merlin Press, 2008). This edition is translated from the 2003 German edi-
tion, and it contains more work on racial discourse, gender during the war, post-colonial relations, and stu-
dies of concentration camps.
13 George Steinmetz, The Devil?s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao,
Samoa, and South West Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 5-6.
14 Steinmetz?s account is an intellectual history that focuses primarily on anthropology and ethnographic
science and not popular notions or the press.
9
Mosse?s Origins of the Final Solution is significant. He avers, however, that racial ideol-
ogy had been sufficiently entrenched by the time Germany entered the colonial equa-
tion.15 German notions of race, then, are less defined in the context of coloniality. As
mentioned above, race is discussed primarily in cultural examinations of the colonies and
the colonists themselves. Comparisons of the white hero to the black warrior and the im-
plications to gender are contained throughout the travel journals and colonial, adventure
literature of the period. Most popular were the exhortations of these novels to Germans to
refrain from ?going native? by avoiding the temptations of the lustful native women. The
reality of race in the colonies was more ambiguous, as some scholars relate, evidenced by
the bans on interracial marriage and the stricter limitations placed on citizenship. Yet,
these were colonial perceptions of race, and these actions were often taken despite the
central government?s condemnations and more liberal views. Helmut Walser Smith,
however, has noted the fractious impact of the war against the Herero in the German par-
liament. He has suggested that the conduct of the war concerned Social Democrats and
Catholics for different reasons, while the more conservative and military-minded mem-
bers of the parliament were less concerned about atrocities. What is interesting, however,
is that both groups used the same racial rhetoric to convey their concern or disdain for the
native Africans.16 Important in Walser Smith?s account is that race was not the object of
concern; racial language was simply a device for discussing other issues. Still, less scho-
larship has dealt with Africans as a self-constituted ?other.?
15 George Mosse, Towards the Final Solution: A History of European Racism (New York: Howard Fertig,
1978), 56. ?The acquisition of colonies in Africa in 1884?came too late to influence the development of
racism in Germany.? Rather, racism was almost always directed against the Jew.
16 Helmut Walser Smith, ?The Talk of Genocide, the Rhetoric of Miscegenation,? in The Imperialist Imagi-
nation: German Colonialism and its Legacy, edited by Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox, and Susanne
Zantop, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).
10
The historiography of German race has focused a great deal on the construction of
the ?other? in Poland and discusses the ?Jewish question? in the context of the long nine-
teenth century. While some of these give reference to racial thought about black Africans,
most of it considers the Polish Jewry.17 A significant trend in current scholarship focuses
on the intellectual and scientific manifestations of German ethnography and its role in the
creation and communication of race. Steinmetz, as we have seen, has considered the di-
rect impact of these sciences on the colonies themselves. Bunzl and Penny, further, have
compiled a volume of essays on the German anthropological tradition, concluding that
German ethnography followed a different trajectory than its Anglo and French counter-
parts. Rather than becoming less radical at the turn of the century, German anthropolo-
gists?for so long the least culturally relativist?became more radical, racist, and subser-
vient to state interests as the twentieth century wore on.18 Other scholars have charted the
evolution of racial discourse in the writings of eighteenth and nineteenth century intellec-
tuals in the fields of theology, philosophy and history. These books suggest that racial
thought is conceived by working scholars as a construct dictated by intellectuals.19 Still,
the gaps in the historiography are significant. They do not consider how this scholarship
17 Helmut Walser Smith, The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race across the Long
Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). This edition tries to trace the origins
of the holocaust centuries back, but finds developing anti-Semitism in the nineteenth century. Oddly
enough, he gives short shrift to the genocide in West Africa as any indication of future atrocities.
18 H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl, eds., Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of Em-
pire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
19 For example, Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore, The German Invention of Race (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2006). This volume contains works by Michael Chauli, ?Laoco?n and the Hottentots?
which discusses aesthetic theory and racial perception in the mid to late eighteenth century specifically
through anthropological conundrums surrounding the differences between Europeans and the Hottentots.
Also Jonathan M. Hess, ?Jewish Emancipation and the Politics of Race? which explores the rise of ?the
political alliance between race thinking and Christian universalism in its relation to Jews and Judaism.?
Overall, this book intends to show that race science was slowly constructed by philosophy, history, and
theology, rather than rising on its own.
11
affected popular notions, nor do they discuss the communication of these scientific no-
tions to the public.
This study thus seeks to accomplish two things. First, it is an attempt to contribute
to a new historiography that places the colonies in a dynamic of influence. It suggests that
the colonies and the Africans impacted Germany and German understandings of colonial
conflict and their native enemies. In the press, Africans were depicted in terms Germans
could understand, rather than?or perhaps only tainted with?the scientific language of
the elite. It also allowed Germans to discuss aspects of their own domestic concerns in
different ways. As such, this paper seeks to understand these different conversations and
issues that underpinned racial language. Race and racial language, although they were
highly developed by 1904, were at once about racial difference and competition, and they
also included several underlying domestic concerns, namely the rising influence of the
nation and the debate surrounding the rising working class. In order to understand the
conflicts that proved to be so salient and forced journalists and editors to assess their
enemies and their nation, the first part charts the course of German colonialism as well as
the more particular histories of the two more prominent African colonies. The second part
offers a brief overview of the press? role and strength in Germany, and it explains the
broadly racial ideologies and language that found expression in all political persuasions
of the press. The third part charts the varying discoursive elements of this racial language.
12
A ?Place in the Sun?
For decades prior to the Berlin Conference and the establishment of South West
Africa, German missions dotted the uncivilized swaths of the world. This presence, com-
bined with early nationalistic calls for colonial expansion, albeit few and fleeting, com-
prised the extent of colonial ambitions before the 1870s. These groups were wont to ex-
claim that Germany was late to empire and had therefore missed out on its ?place in the
sun.? At that time, however, the rising popularity of geographic and colonial societies and
scientific organizations led to increasing numbers of explorers headed to Africa and the
Pacific. Supported by small patriotic investors, these adventurers secured tracts of land in
Germany?s name. Bismarck, however, was loath to entertain the notion of using the na-
tion?s resources and bureaucracy ?for the purpose of ruling distant, little-known, and as
yet ill-defined possessions.?20
Instead, as it seemed the colonial impetus was gaining steam, Bismarck conceded
and planned to conduct colonial policy indirectly through charted organizations. This
would release the German government from diplomatic and financial responsibility. As it
turned out, however, these colonial organizations were not equipped to handle the admin-
istration and finance of such large colonies. The parsimonious situations the colonies
faced contributed to their general impotence in establishing effective government and or-
der. This was partly to do, however, with the leaders of the colonies, who were neither
businessmen nor politicians; rather, they were romantics and explorers. Their plenipoten-
tiaries?the bureaucrats that administered the colonies in a fashion?came from the dregs
of the governmental bureaucracy. They were ?wrong in training and character, and often
20 L. H. Gugnan and Peter Duigan, The Rulers of German Africa, 10.
13
more wrong in morals.?21 Wholesale misrule, corruption, and abuse characterized the ear-
ly years of the colonial experiment, leaving a sour taste in the mouths of many and lead-
ing to a decrease in popular support for the endeavor.
Germany, thus, was forced to take over the administration of the colonies, just as
money from big businesses began to trickle in ever so slowly. A new colonial administra-
tion with a permanent council of economists and experts replaced the colonial societies as
the colonial leaders. This coincided with the establishment of business monopolies,
which constituted a major concern for social democrats and center parties alike and
which accomplished very little while profiting a great deal from it. Significantly, these
changes did nothing to affect the administration of the colonies. They continued to be
poorly led, corruption abounded, and the abject treatment of the natives continued?
despite German pretenses at giving the natives more rights and protections. In any case,
the natives despised these new heavily bureaucratized administrations as much as the ar-
bitrary dictators of the 80s.22
The mistreatment of the natives throughout the first twenty years of German rule,
led to widespread rebellion. In all of Germany?s colonies, from Africa to the Pacific, na-
tives took up arms against their colonial masters. These risings were rarely spectacular,
and they were always put down. Those in Germany?s South West African and East Afri-
21 William Harbut Dawson, The German Empire, 1860-1948 (Hamden: Archon Books, 1966), 213.
22 Graichen and Gr?nder, Deutsche Kolonien: Traum und Trauma (Berlin: Ullstein HC, 2005), summarize
the origins of German imperialism by spreading the credit to the colonial societies, diplomacy?primarily
between England and Germany?and to big monopolies. L. H. Gugnan and Peter Duigan, The Rulers of
German Africa, claims that domestic politics and colonial societies were far less important than the military
nature of Germany and large investors in the introductory chapter. Writing in 1919, Dawson (The German
Empire, 1860-1948) averred that colonial policy was the coincidence of diplomatic overtures and conflict.
It was not a directed programme but a challenge accepted. Horst Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting ( London:
Zed Press, 1980), a Marxist historian, thinks that true imperialism only began in the 90s, because that is
when big monopolies were formed and capitalism entered the equation. It seems in that newer scholarship
gives sufficient voice to numerous interpretations.
14
can colonies, however, flirted with success. These conflicts and the colonies they rose
from certainly shared some common characteristics. But this general account of the path
to colonialism and the broad trends in manifestation does not consider the nuances of the
German colonial experience. Every colony had its own particular experience, especially
in regards to native rebellion. The two most dramatic, spectacular and similarly devastat-
ing rebellions in the colonies were rooted in the general colonial background, but each
arose under quite specific circumstances.
German Southwest Africa
German presence in South West Africa dated to the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury when evangelists from the Rhenish Mission Society arrived to civilize the Herero
natives and spread Christianity. This presence amounted to very little until F. A. E.
L?derlitz acquired the initial imperial foothold in South West Africa in 1883 after obtain-
ing territorial concessions from a coastal Hottentot leader. A nationalist and an ardent co-
lonialist, L?derlitz intended on building a vast colonial empire, but his purse?as was the
case with many colonial enthusiasts?was nowhere near large enough to fund such an
endeavor. His initial request to Bismarck for protection and recognition was refused, but
a year later the chancellor reconsidered, extending protection to the entire region. L?der-
litz, hopeful that the colony would reap massive short-term benefits, did not find the min-
eral resources he had wanted, thus leading other companies to assume the stewardship of
the region. These investors, however, contributed only paltry sums and developed very
little and in the meanwhile accumulated millions of hectares of land. For five years the
colonial bureaucracy was unable to exert any authority; the military pushed inland in the
early 1890s to little effect. In fact, they found themselves constrained by and forced to
15
conform to the conflictual dynamic of power that existed between the Herero and Nama,
the most powerful native groups in the region.23
In the early 90s, however, increasing numbers of settlers and an enlarging military
presence led to a corresponding rise in European intervention in African affairs. Signifi-
cantly, the Herero-Nama rivalry temporarily subsided to meet the German threat; in 1892,
the two groups conducted an alliance, although perhaps too late to reverse the gains of the
German imperial machine. Still, only amounting to some ill-considered attacks on the
German margins, the partnership was easily thwarted. Moreover, given the multiplicity of
tribes in the region, Governor Leutwein proved particularly adept at playing different tri-
bes off each other in a policy of divide and rule.24 Yet, the immediate causal factors for
the conflict came with the elimination of native rights and the aggressive acquisition of
land and cattle from the natives. Leutwein wholeheartedly advocated both measures,
looking for reasons to disarm natives and to appropriate their herds of cattle. Further, as
the numbers of settlers increased in the years before 1904?from 310 in 1891 to 4,640 at
the beginning of 190325?new ways of accommodating these numbers on such little good
land were needed.
German policy was broadly manipulative, sparing not even the most powerful tri-
bes. Small uprisings of the less significant tribes intent on keeping their cattle or their
guns were quickly put down, but as the Germans came increasingly to target the Herero
rebellions sentiment was fostered. The settlers that swarmed into the Herero region gen-
erated clever methods of dispossessing the Herero of their cattle. They would buy prod-
23 L. H. Gugnan and Peter Duigan, The Rulers of German Africa, 16-20; See also Graichen and Gr?nder,
Deutsche Kolonien, 118-133.
24 Drechsler, Let Us Die Fighting, 4-7.
25 Ibid., 97.
16
ucts with credit and offer them to the Herero on similar terms. After repeating this
process for some time, the unscrupulous colonizers would demand repayment, knowing
well that the Herero neither possessed money nor had a concept of it. The colonists would
typically then demand arbitrary numbers of cattle to recompense. In this manner, German
settlers became wealthy, while the heads of cattle owned by the Herero decreased to just
over 45,000 from hundreds of thousands. The Herero became abjectly impoverished as a
result of this and of German land policy, which, despite the best efforts of the missionary
societies, was on pace to remove the natives from their land in short order at the time the
Herero war began.26
The Herero were not only aware that this was an unfair system?that talk of native
reservations portended nothing good?but ?they neither could nor would live any longer
under these conditions.? Increasing predations and the building of the Otavi railway
proved to be the last straw. Driven to despair and desperation, their situation deteriorating
from one year to the next, there was no better time than January 12, 1904, when Samuel
Maherero with his tribe and several others swiftly and decisively took most of Hererol-
and. They killed nearly a hundred German men and took their livestock back. They were,
however, unable to take advantage of their early dominance, and allowed the Germans to
regroup. As fresh troops and supplies arrived, the Germans systematically relieved their
beleaguered strongholds. During the initial stages of the fighting the Germans suffered
considerable losses. In June 1904, von Trotha replaced Leutwein as the military com-
mander. This soon manifested in the operational policy of killing every Herero becoming
institutionalized. The German surprise attack in August at the Waterberg resulted in
26 Ibid., 88-119.
17
heavy Herero losses, the remainder managing to escape into the wastes to the east.27 Fol-
lowing this victory, von Trotha did not allow the Herero to return; rather he forced them
to stay in the desert as part of an extreme policy of eradication. The Herero nation, name-
ly those who survived the ghastly ordeal in the desert, entered concentration camps and
labor camps, after Berlin decided that this genocidal policy was inhumane. The Herero
conflict, however, sparked a series of native rebellions in the colony, which tied up Ger-
man troops for several years. The Herero war committed no lasting damage against the
colony; in fact, quite the opposite happened. It finally gave Germany the excuse to take
all Herero land and cattle and finish the job they had started; it was a convenient war, and
one that showed the darkest side of German imperialism.28 East Africa developed in simi-
lar ways, exhibiting similar trends, but it had its development was nuanced in several
ways.
German East Africa
German interest in Africa, as has already been noted, extended further back in time
than the initial drives to acquire territory. Throughout the nineteenth century, German
missionaries had attempted to evangelize the people of Tanganyika, but these efforts
were not tied to the acquisition of land. Rather, the popularity of geographical societies
and the scientific organizations following the unification of Germany made the founding
of German East Africa possible. Specifically, the fanatic enthusiasm and daring of Carl
Peters gave Germany the reason many had been looking for to enter the colonial competi-
tion. As the imperial eagle first flew above South West Africa, Peters was traipsing
throughout Tanganyika obtaining a number of treaties with local chieftains and native
27 Ibid., 132-146.
28 See also Graichen and Gr?nder 136-150. Much of their account details the atrocities of German imperial-
ism and modern memory.
18
leaders?although they were uncomprehending leaders who had little power or no au-
thority to do so.29 Bismarck, as was the case with L?derlitz, was less enthusiastic than
Peters; even in Parliament many opposed supporting an East African endeavor. Yet the
German government agreed to grant sovereignty over the region to the Deutsch Ostafrika
Gesellschaft (DOAG)?at first only 46 bureaucrats scattered across the region, supported
by patriotic, albeit small-time, financiers. The first five years offered nothing of note; op-
erations on the coast stalled in the face of stiff native opposition, and efforts to establish
footholds inland failed for lack of infrastructure and settlers. The society also failed dip-
lomatically, making no effort to foster a pro-German contingent in the colony and, in-
stead, alienating ?the coastal population by its economic exactions, bureaucratic chica-
nery, and showy display of flags.? Having proved unfit to the task of administering the
colony and incurring massive economic losses in the process, the DOAG?s duties fell to
an embarrassed German Reichstag.30 Berlin replaced the DOAG administration with its
own preferred leader, Hermann von Wissmann. Wissmann extended German authority
through violence and diplomacy, leading an expeditionary force against the coastal insur-
rections, and making local alliances in an effort to divide and rule.
As German influence became increasingly consolidated, regions other than the
coast?the bastion of the colonial bureaucracy?began to develop into areas of enter-
prise. The northern highlands of the colony especially attracted small numbers of large
agriculturalists. To maintain this position and security of these settlers, Germans took po-
29 John Iliffe, Tanganyika under German Rule (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1973), 10-11. Al-
so, Arne Perras, Carl Peters and German Imperialism 1856-1918: A Political Biography (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 2004), 46-66. Perras details the trip and the atrocities Peters committed, as well as the hardships
he and his team endured to secure these treaties.
30 L. H. Gugnan and Peter Duigan, The Rulers of German Africa, 12-17. Also, Perras, 81-129. Perras also
suggests that the colonial societies were effective agitators in the political arena, thus adding to the histori-
ography of broader trends of colonialism as well.
19
sitions in local conflicts, eliminating the threat of many tribes, while maintaining civil
relations with others. Yet this diplomacy offered only tenuous control, and many leaders
in the south and west of the colony resisted Germans to great effect until the military took
its revenge, further weakening the primary rivals. This was only one of a number of na-
tive insurrections which German soldiers were forced to put down. Still, despite force of
arms, power spread unevenly, manifesting more strongly in the northeast and along the
coast. In 1905, little had improved; the government was intent on reducing the colony?s
military contingent; the colony was in desperate need of funds; and agriculture proved to
be generally unproductive and uneconomic. Moreover, no rebellion had broken out in
four years, lulling the Germans into complacent disregard of native policy. In this con-
text, the Maji-Maji War caught the German administration unaware.
This rebellion was a long time coming, and it found its roots in the fragile political
and economic systems that the Germans had fostered. Taxes imposed in 1898, the rise
and fall of cotton culture in the southern reaches of the colony, and increasing brutality in
this European/native dynamic of power formed the preconditions of the uprising. Follow-
ing the defeat of the powerful Matumbi tribe in the south, the Germans sought to profit
from the vacuum of native influence it created by forcing natives to work on cotton plan-
tations. The forced labor was systematized. One member from each family would work
on multiple plantations depending on the day of the month. In the words of a native recal-
ling the German treatment, ?[a]fter you arrived there you all suffered very greatly. Your
back and your buttocks were whipped, and there was no rising once you stooped to
dig.?31 Another native recalled of the European overseer monitoring his fields ?Behold
31 John Iliffe and G.C.K Gwassa, Records of the Maji-Maji Rising (Nairobi: East African Publishing House,
1967), 6.
20
death there!?32 This treatment was not only brutal, but it kept the natives from their own
subsistence during key harvesting periods??This is why some people became furious
and angry. The work was astonishingly hard and full of grave suffering, but its wages
were the whip on one?s back and buttocks.? These festering feelings, combined with the
native ideal that the ?Wamatumbi?since the days of old, did not want to be troubled or
ruled by any person,? led the people to say with resentment ?[t]his has now become an
absolute ruler. Destroy him.?33
The preconditions meant nothing, however, without the power and influence of
popular religion. A prophet in the region gathered a large following around his anti-
European message. The Europeans were aware of this popular movement but were una-
ble to halt its spread. By June and July 1905, the ranks of the future insurrectionists had
swollen to the tens of thousands; they had also begun advanced preparations and training
for an assault on German hegemony. They awaited only the permission of the prophet.
Driven by religious fervor, indignation, and fueled by a feeling of invincibility?the re-
bellion taking its name from Maji, the magical water supposed to protect against spears
and bullets?the natives spread out of the south eastern region intent on clearing the re-
gion of Arabs, Indians, and Europeans. They attacked cotton plantations, trading settle-
ments, and Arab traders. Throughout August they destroyed everything, gathering mo-
mentum and spreading to other regions until late in the month and into early September.
At that time successive, devastating reverses signaled an end to massive resistance. Cru-
cial to this string of victories was, first of all, western technology; the machine gun
32 Ibid., 7-8.
33 Iliffe, Tanganyika Under German Rule, 8-10. Gugnan and Duigan, The Rulers of German Africa, also
offers a good overview of the harshness of German colonial administration as well as the social impact of
slavery on pages 194-198.
21
proved especially destructive to the effervescent waves of native attackers. Recalling the
failed assault on the European bastion at Mahenge, a native participant lamented: ?Oh so
many people died that day! For they had not known what a machine gun was?Far too
many people died that day.?34 Second, internecine conflict among the Africans them-
selves made it easier for the Europeans to catch their breath and stem the tide. Several
native leaders, rather than seeing the anti-colonial religiosity as beneficial, sided with the
Germans, tipping the balance in favor of the beleaguered Europeans. By October, Ger-
man troops were in the ascendant and were forced to fight a guerilla conflict for another
two years, until 1907, as the rebellion went underground. Having lost their faith in im-
munity, the natives resorted to tested methods of warfare. Only with the institution of a
revised native policy?one that favored cooperation and reconsidered economic practic-
es?and widespread famine, did the violence subside, leaving perhaps 75,000 dead.35
Whites and Germans were acutely aware of both wars, in German East Africa and
South West Africa. Drechsler has noted the highly racist and militaristic propaganda
campaigns in Germany, while Philippa S?ldenwagner has suggested that these conflicts
popularized the colonies, leading to the post war immigration of thousands of middle
class businessmen and their families. Only defeat in World War I stemmed the rising tide
of German colonial growth and aspirations. A primary factor in the increasing salience of
colonial affairs and the popularization of ?Kolonialpolitik,? along with the highly racial
outcomes of both, was the simultaneous rise of the mass press. Newspapers, as we will
see, allowed Germans of all classes to leave the provincial past and become more global-
ly aware. Certainly, they relayed news of the conflicts, but perhaps more significantly,
34 Iliffe and Gwassa, Records of the Maji-Maji Rising, 10-11.
35 Illife, Tanganyika, 15-29.
22
they also contributed to the political and racial ideas resulting from these native wars.
The German press and its coverage and commentary of colonial wars comprise the topic
of the second part.
The Press
A Rising Power
The final third of the nineteenth century witnessed the rise of the press from the an-
tagonistic margins to becoming a highly influential ?power.? Such innovations as the
telegraph and more efficient printing technology made this a European phenomenon.
Germans in particular, however, proved to be avid readers of newspapers and magazines.
More and more, Germans from all walks of life read about localities and the nation as
well as ideas and events from around the world. As a result, modern society truly became
a ?society of communication.? The newspaper served as a galvanizing force and an outlet
for public discussion and commentary on wide ranging topics. One such way in which
the press wielded considerable opportunity to connect people was in the political life of
the nation. Political parties and groups seized upon its growing influence to help foster an
atmosphere of discussion about contemporary society and politics. They became, in fact,
such an integral part of the German political discourse that ?everyone, including the con-
servatives, lived with and through the newspaper.? By 1904, the press and politics were
intricately linked; political debate, more so than ever before, was conducted both in the
halls of parliament and simultaneously in the pages of Germany?s newspapers.36
It did not seem in the middle of the century that such a burgeoning press would ex-
ist in Germany. This growth followed a period of extreme journalistic censorship during
36 Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918 Band 1(Munich: C.H. Beck, 1993), 797.
23
the 1860s and 70s. Yet by the 1890s even the victims of the ?Kulturkampf? had procured
rights to press freedom. The numbers of newspapers and the circulation of each rose
dramatically; from 1850 to 1914 the sheer number of newspapers rose by nearly three
times, and the circulation for many of these rose to varying degrees, as well. The more
successful papers often issued several editions of the paper a day, a couple in the morning
and an evening edition. With this growth came incredible ideological and topical diversi-
ty among and in certain newspapers. Some papers devoted the majority of space to arts
and literature, others focused on local issues, while some of the larger general newspa-
pers devoted some space to serial novels and tips on gardening.37
It was these larger newspapers, the ?Generalanzeigers,? which primarily grew in
popularity and in which much of the political discourse was conducted. They maintained
political neutrality and catered to a hitherto unpoliticized mass of readers; they served as
the mouthpiece for the masses of Germans in large cities and towns. Because of indepen-
dent funding, they maintained greater political distance, while offering the accoutrements
of culture and literature. The ?Generalanzeigers? were also far cheaper than the more
archaic, ideologically and politically stringent presses?Vorw?rts and the Kreuzzeitung
among these?often half as much. Yet another broadly appealing aspect also stemmed
from the source of funds. Each independent owner of a newspaper came to own many
more papers in the city, building each up to corner an aspect of the press market. These
included smaller newspapers devoted to sport and gardening as well as the finer arts. This
new type of journalism, which ?combined apolitical and political elements,? took up a
major share of the market. The rise of this politically ?neutral? segment of the press cor-
responded with an evolution in the approach to journalism; ?journalists from here on out
37 Ibid., 801.
24
wanted to say what the public thought.?38 As such, it offered sufficient space to various
interpretations and acknowledged different political ideologies, a far cry from the pre-
vious ?Richtung? oriented incarnations of the press.
While the ?Generalanzeiger? became increasingly important as the century ended,
other press organs rose in influence as well. The Catholic press, for so long critics of
modernity, began in earnest during the 60s and 70s. The world was full of newspapers,
and clerical concerns could easily be addressed through popular methods. It addressed
matters spiritual and worldly, increasing its circulation manifold from the ?Kulturkampf?
until the First World War. Beyond religion, however, the press divided along political
issues. The Social Democratic press, which had been close to extinction during the time
of strict censorship, enjoyed a resurgence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-
ries. The Berlin newspaper Vorw?rts was the central organ of the Social Democrats, but,
almost mirroring the party, many more radical Socialist papers and more particularly lo-
cal Socialist newspapers existed. Vorw?rts sought to give a super regional perspective,
forming a tight network of information sharing and correspondence with papers in other
cities. Three things, however, mitigated the influence of the Socialist press. First, despite
Vorw?rts?s claim to being the ?central organ of the Social Democratic Party,?39 it
represented the interests mainly of those party members in Berlin. Similar papers in other
cities stressed more locally nuanced issues or urged more or less radicalism from their
party. This was partly a problem of the editors? political inclinations, but also a result of
the increasing number of newspapers and the dilution of the message. The same problem
existed, however, within the party itself. Although it was the largest party in Germany, it
38 Ibid., 802.
39 The newspaper sub-heading triumphantly proclaims this.
25
was crippled by internal subdivisions. This manifested in the press regionally and nation-
ally, making it harder for a broadly effectual Social Democratic press to exist. Finally,
with the rise of the new journalism pioneered by the Generalanzeigers, ?in the time be-
fore 1914 the style of the agitation press weakened.?40 That is not to say that the Social
Democratic press was impotent; rather, it continued to foster political and social discus-
sion?and did so in much the same way as the press on the other end of the political spec-
trum.
The conservative press shared many of the problems of its socialist counterpart.
The ideological and interpretational divide manifested in hundreds of ?conservative?
newspapers. In 1914, there were 214 conservative papers, 61 free-conservative papers,
214 national papers, 216 listed as national liberal, 277 considered themselves left liberal,
and another 367 were simply liberal. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, otherwise known as
the Kreuzzeitung after the large Prussian cross on the front of every issue, for example
was the primary newspaper of the Prussian conservatives, while several other newspapers
in this study are regional conservative or national. The Frankfurter Zeitung, another pa-
per central to this survey, was a left-liberal organ. The Coburger Zeitung and the Dresd-
ner Journal both represented various parts of this end of the political-ideological spec-
trum. The conservative press that was not tied to the government served as a highly in-
fluential right, opposition voice, and held significant sway over government moderates,
diplomats, and heads of society.41
As such, the vast regional and ideological variance and the large numbers of jour-
nalists that interpreted the ?Wolffische? Telegrams contributed to a cacophony of politi-
40 Ibid., 805-807.
41 Ibid., 807.
26
cal discourse. That, however, does not detract from the incredible influence the press had
on such varying topics as foreign and domestic politics. ?Pressepolitik? was indeed a
phenomenon that could not be ignored by the government. Everyone and every party in
politics, even Bismarck, used the press to their own intents and purposes42. In this study,
the multifaceted character of the press?the dissonance of views and approaches?is im-
portant to understanding the language of race and it?s own multi-tiered levels of meaning.
Also important in this regard, however, is to understand that the press was, in fact, broad-
ly racial. In response to the wars in Africa and in other aspects of colonial discourse, the
press, regardless of its political inclinations, expressed popular notions of race.
The Racism of the Press: Ethnography
With the initial outbreak of violence in South West Africa and a year later in East
Africa, the press?except in some instances in 1905?quickly relayed the frantic Morse
code warning of native rebellion to an avid public. Perhaps not surprisingly, press re-
sponse and the specifics of the news varied dramatically. Depending on the political lean-
ings of specific newspapers, the focus of coverage ran along a political and ideological
spectrum. The focus of one newspaper, for example, inclined towards debating the ori-
gins of the conflict, while another advocated a specific course of action, or yet another
tended to more readily detail the atrocities of the natives or the tactics of the war. These
differences were broadly noticeable throughout the coverage of both wars. Beyond trends
of emphasis, however, certain predominant themes transcended ideological and political
boundaries where others did not. Most prominent among these themes were the highly
racialized aspects of the coverage. Influenced by Social Darwinist rhetoric, the press was
42 Ibid., 809.
27
broadly racial; newspapers utilized racist language in their analyses of the origins of con-
flicts and in discussions of Germany?s native subjects. Some did so by employing ethno-
graphic and anthropological science to introduce the natives to their readers. Most re-
vealed their racial explications in attempting to foist the onus of guilt on to either the na-
tives or colonists. Finally, race played a major factor in the ideal, German response to the
outbreak as well as the foreseeable future of the colony.
Following the events of 12-13 January 1904, a combination of the violence,
the dire straits facing Germany, and the surprising nature of it all, forced the press into
action. They published death tolls, troop numbers and location, detailed the geography
and infrastructure of the colony, and generally explained the difficult task at hand. Cru-
cial to the press? analysis, however, was to introduce Germans to their colonial enemies.
In some papers, for example, within the first week of the outbreak in South West Africa,
maps and ?expert? descriptions of Germany?s native subjects splashed across the front
pages. These descriptions and maps tended to stress the same aspects of the natives, their
pre-war disposition, geographic spread, etc. These articles may have been written simply
because depicting the ?population? is ?especially interesting?43 and sells papers; there is
something inherently entertaining about learning about different cultures. More impor-
tantly, however, these offer insight into the priorities and dispositions of various organs
of the press.
George Steinmetz has observed that pre-colonial ethnographic discourse signifi-
cantly impacted the type of colonial hegemony that German governors and bureaucrats
enforced. While his study assesses a broad swath of history prior to the enacting of co-
43 ?Die V?lkerst?mme in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Vorw?rts, Jan 28, 1904, Erste Beilage. It mentions stud-
ying the ?dortige Bev?lkerung? as ?besonderes Interesse.?
28
lonial acquisition, he argues that the period of active colonizing was important to both
ethnographic endeavor and to colonial governance. It created a relationship in which
?causal traffic moved in both directions.? Whereas, ethnography had held considerable
sway over policymaking prior to and at the onset of coloniality, ?scientific and ethno-
graphic discourse about a particular indigenous group tended to correspond closely to the
basic thrust of native policy in a given period.? The roles reversed, and new ethnography
responded to various colonial situations.44 For so long, German anthropology had
avoided the progressive historical tendencies and progressive hierarchies clung to by
French and English scientists. Instead, they broadly viewed ?human diversity through a
specifically German lens; and what they saw was the result of particular histories rather
than stages on the progressive march of reason.? In the tradition of Herder, every culture
was significant as a Volksgeist. Yet, by 1895, this science was changing and for various
reasons.45 Instead of valuing the diversity of their empire, Rochus Schmidt consistently
compared Hottentot culture to that of white Europeans. He correlated intelligence with
certain aspects of facial structures. His ethnography, while acknowledging the musical
and linguistic talents of the Hottentot tribe, stressed that ?the Hottentot is always ready
for a schnapps, and he would ride all night, sell his wife, and murder for a bottle of Fu-
44 Steinmetz, The Devils Handwriting, 145-146.
45 Penny and Bunzl, 19-23. The edited volume Worldly Provincialism by Penny and Bunzl attempts to ex-
plain this shift at the turn of the twentieth century. Whether the reason is the increasing links between bio-
logical eugenics and anthropological science or the democratization of V?lkerschauen into forms of im-
perial, popular entertainment, anthropology and ethnography changed dramatically into a chauvinist, natio-
nalist science. Also, Benoit Massin, ?From Virchow to Fischer: Physical Anthropology and ?Modern Race
Theories? in Wilhelmine Germany,? in Volksgeist as Method and Ethic, edited by George W. Stocking, Jr.,
79-154, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 94-106. Massin notes this change over time, al-
though he is quick to assert that even liberal anthropologists regarded Germany?s colonial subjects as infe-
rior, despite their efforts to ?ennoble? them. By 1985, however, newer, racist science had prevailed. Also,
Mosse has noted that much of this ?science? was ascientific, that many anthropologists ?lost their grounding
in empiricism. Eventually, patriotism displaced ?reliable facts,? and for them, the Germans became the
superior race? (87).
29
sel.?46 Hierarchical anthropology also reared its ugly head, when he suggested that the
Basters?similar to the Boers but more ?native??were superior to the ?Negers,? but dis-
dainfully added that they were disgusting beggars.47 This ethnographic discourse was also
to be found in the press?however amateur?presenting a spectrum of ethnographic
styles.
In the case of the Herero uprising Vorw?rts, Frankfurter Zeitung, and the Neue
Preussische Zeitung published such ethnographic articles. The article in Vorw?rts, ac-
companied by a map, related more so than any other newspaper the geographic placement
and the diversity of the tribes. With intricate detail, it showed the vast expanse of the co-
lony and the sheer numbers of its native inhabitants. It explained how the tribes were in-
terrelated and how some of them were simply agglomerations of the others; many were of
?mixed blood.? The map did show the political boundary of the colony, but the tribes ex-
isted on both sides of the fluid line. Perhaps significantly, the extent of Germany?s colony
did not determine the extent of the movement and existence of these tribes.48 It seemed to
utilize the outmoded ethnographic tradition that valued cultural variety and diversity of
history. The Frankfurter Zeitung?s ethnographic study was slightly more chauvinist. It
was far less concerned with the natives than what their numbers and weapons could say
about them. It noted with fascination that, in the many years of living with European
weapons, they seemed to be none the better marksmen. Rather, they were much better
with their bows and arrows. The article gave little more than numbers, organization and
46 Rochus Schmidt, Deutschlands Kolonien, ihre Gestaltung, Entwickelung und Hilfsquellen, von Rochus
Schmidt (Berlin: Schall & Grund, 1895), 228: ?F?r einen Schnapps ist der Hottentotte zu jeder Zeit di-
enstbar, f?r eine Flashce Fusel reitet er die ganze Nacht Kurier, verkauft sein Weib und begeht einen
Mord.?
47 Ibid, 233.
48 ?Die Voelkerst?mme in Deutsch Suedwest-Afrika,? Vorw?rts, January 28, 1904, Erste Beilage.
?mischbl?tige St?mme.?
30
weapons. They were both quick to point out that Germany?s enemies were more diverse
than one might think, and they sought to relate that each tribe was important for German
bureaucrats to consider.49 Yet, while one paper overtly suggested this, the other was
tainted with cultural relativism. Other newspapers, however, did not even consider the
native variety in their own colonies.
The Neue Preussische Zeitung also released its own ethnographic assessment of
their native antagonists written by Dr. J. Wiese. Wiese was far less distant in his appraisal
of the natives, speaking of a time ?when our natives are finally defeated?? suggested his
bias from the outset. After a vivid description of the average Herero, their hair, height,
and occupation, he mentioned that they are ?liars? and are quickly resort to ?begging.? It
described their clothes and dwellings, but it characterized them as being like any other
?Kaffirhut.? It disdainfully described the polygamy, paganism, birthing practices, and
funerary ceremonies in comparison to those of westerners. The purpose of this article was
not to ?reveal? the natives as such. Instead, it was intended to depict the vices, the irratio-
nality, and the sub-humanity of their enemies.50 Although the descriptions of native prac-
tices amounted to an in-depth ethnography of the Herero people, the cultural relativism
and the interspersed condescension placed this assessment among the newer, chauvinistic
anthropological sciences. Conflicts in East Africa and in New Guinea offered more op-
portunity for Germans to describe their natives.
German East Africa, however, presents a more difficult case in analyzing these
articles as a way to look at racial language. Because of the availability of certain sources,
49 ?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, January 19, 1904, Evening Edition.
50 ?Die Hereros ihre Zitten und Gebr?uche,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 16, 1904. This article notes
their propensity to ?luegen,? their habit of becoming ?Betteln,? and generalizes African dwellings as ?Kaf-
firh?tten.?
31
the nature of the conflict in East Africa as opposed to that in the South West, and, it
seems, the priorities of certain newspapers, only one such example of anthropological
ethnography exists for the Maji-Maji War. The only significant example of this type of
article came from the August 24th edition of Frankfurter Zeitung. Even this article, how-
ever, used as its ?expert analysis? a military officer with twenty years of service. This
article did not maintain an anthropologically distant disposition; rather, it was obviously
biased against the rebellious natives. Its descriptions of the natives as ?effete,? as drunks,
and as easily swayed by magic and sorcery often became confused with the causes for the
conflict, suggesting that the essence of the natives caused the conflict. He did not mention
their appearance, but he did stress the multitude of tribes in the region as well as the riva-
lries extant among them.51 One wonders whether this description would extend to Ger-
many?s native allies, since, as Steinmetz has noted, Germany did have its favored natives.
Significantly, at the end of August 1904, a violent murder of missionaries in
Germany?s New Guinea colony provided another opportunity for an ethnographic look at
Germany?s native subjects. In this instance, the newspaper takes a more appraising stance
than some articles a year earlier, although it was evident that the writer?a churchman?
favored one tribe over the other. The Baining were described as intelligent, deft with their
weaponry, and stationary, living in grass huts. The ?Kuestenbewohnern,? the murderous
group, which is given no other name than their location??the author treats contemp-
tuously, labeling them cannibals. The former group had previously maintained favorable
ties with the Germans and the missionaries, but the barbarian nomads, for that is all that
the author knows about them, have taken the Baining as slaves leading the author to say
51 ?Kolonialpolitisches,? Frankfurter Zeitung, September 14, 1904. For East Africa, the one account does
not focus as much on numbers as irrationality and belief in magic.
32
that ?the lot of the Baining is immensely bitter.? Moreover, as a result of the Pater?s out-
spoken criticisms of the Baining enslavement, the ?Kuestenbewohnern? evidently mur-
dered him and his brothers and sisters of the cloth.52 The author pities the non-threatening
tribe in this local power dynamic, elevating them to a type of ?noble savage? in compari-
son to the ultimate transgressors, the cannibalistic ?Kuestenbewohnern.? These, to the
contrary, constitute a terrifying and unknown quantity that pose a threat to Germany?s
influence as well as the ongoing civilizing process. Colonial conflict even on such a small
scale offers the opportunity for papers to give accounts of Germany?s colonial subjects.
It seems that some did not always resort to ethnography to discover their enemies.
Four newspapers did so?however biased; it did not matter so much to others. While
some papers sought to understand their subjects, the more nationalist press was content at
labeling them the masses or listing their exact numbers, typically in terms of the number
of rifles a group possessed. The Dresdner Journal, for example, seemed less concerned
with the sheer numbers of the natives. Rather, it counted the number of weapons the na-
tives and the whites possessed in comparison, in this case content that the natives in one
hot spot had ?50 rifles, almost equal to that of the growing numbers of whites.? Other pa-
pers refer to ?the Herero hordes? or ?a black cloud,? content to sensationalize or propa-
gandize or out of a genuine ignorance of the numbers of native warriors.53 Perhaps out of
confidence or lack of information54, the story dehumanizes the natives and makes them
dangerously large entities facing the explicit numbers of whites and Germans. Often,
52 Ibid. It mentioned that ?das Los der Baining-Sklaven? is ?ungemein hart.?
53 ?Aus anderen Bl?ttern,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 21, 1904. ?50 Gewehren stimmt fast genau
mit der Zahl der erwachsenen Weissen.;? Also ?Vom Aufstand der Hereros,? NPZ, February 1, 1904. ?den
Horden der Herero;? as well as ?Der Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, August 20, 1904: this
equates the Herero fleeing through the gap in the German lines as ?einer schwarzen Wolke.?
54 ?Der Herero-Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Coburger Zeitung, January 29, 1904. This article
stressed that there were untold thousands of enemies. It noted that nobody really knew how many ?Kaffirs?
and ?feindlisches Volk? the Germans were truly facing.
33
however, the conversation about understanding the natives and the threat they posed,
evolved either into commentary on the origins or the resolution of the conflict.
The Search for Answers
Racial slurs and overtly racist language appeared throughout the coverage of both
of Germany?s colonial wars. This occurred most, however, in discussions of the origins
of conflict. Depending on the ideological persuasion of the newspaper, the origins or the
outcome of the wars dominate discussion. Of course, every paper gives its own interpre-
tation of each war?s origins, but Vorw?rts and the Frankfurter Zeitung offer a more struc-
tural, overarching account. Speaking for the downtrodden natives, the Social Democratic
press criticized the general European view that the ?coloreds were some kind of two
legged animal.? It cites this treatment, the numerous outrageous executions of natives,
and the failure of the mission to civilize as reasons that ?the rebellion is more like a revolt
against the imperial whip.? Despite the fact that this group elevates and calls for better
treatment of the natives, it is racially informed. It advocates compensating the natives for
their destroyed ?hovels,? and it laments their poverty: ?the poor hungry black devils.? It
was not that the natives should be equal, but that the whites had failed the natives, that
the whites brought along with their whips ?schnapps and syphilis, the dregs of (Euro-
pean) culture.?55 The natives were still lesser, despite the fact that they were worthy of
better than ?barbaric? treatment, nonetheless.56
55 ?Unser Neuer Kolonialkrieg,? Vorw?rts, Jan 16, 1904. ?Man betrachtet den Farbigen als eine Art zwei-
beinige Tieres;? ?Es w?re also nicht ausgeschlossen, dass der Aufstand eine Art Revolte gegen die Nilp-
ferdptische darstellte;? ?den armen Teufeln von hungerden Schwarzen;? "Schnapps und Syphilis, das find
auch hier die Kulturg?ter, die man den Eingeborenen neben der Nilpferdpeitsche gebracht hat!"
56 ?Ein Kolonialer Scharfmacher,? Vorw?rts, February 3, 1904. It mentions the ?barbarische Handlung? of
the natives by the settlers, and warns that this will drastically lead to a situation like the British were facing
in South Africa.
34
The Frankfurter Zeitung offered a more systematic and less vitriolic version of
the war?s origins. It claimed that the ?politics of half-measures? and ?frailty? sowed and
must reap these ?bloody fruits.? The article hoped lessons had been learned, condemning
the German administration for poor foresight. Ultimately, ?absurd livestock farming? and
severe indebtedness led to ?progressive impoverishment.? These unfair settler practices
drove the natives to poverty and to rebellion.57 A day later, while suggesting alternatives
to massive reinforcement, the paper enumerates the war?s causes as if they were unders-
tood: the shrinking of native personal land holdings and the worsening of their economic
position for various reasons.58 German policy instigated the violence, but only in as much
as it pushed the natives off the precipice into abject poverty. The ?Kaffern? (even in de-
fending the natives it used derogatory language), through their own inferiority, brought
much of this upon themselves. Despite this, the paper was quick to dispel any notions that
German presence was good for the Africans. It did not need ?Kolonialpolitik? packaged
na?vely as a ?culture mission and as providing the natives with the gift of German civili-
zation, a gift that often turns out to be hard and gruesome.?59 A year later, the paper was
less condemning of Germans. It offered no more than the perspective of the military of-
ficer, who denied claims about unfair labor practices, suggesting instead that the ?effete
weakness? and ?drinking and smoking binges? as well as too much idle time made the
57 ?Zum Aufstand der Herero in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, January 19, 1904: ?Die Po-
litik der Halbheit und Schw?che;? ?blutige Fr?chte;? ?unsinniger Viehwirtschaft;? ?fortschreitender Ve-
rarmung.?
58 ?Der Aufstand der Herero,? Frankfurter Zeitung, January 20, 1904. The majority of this article, however,
as with most articles looks at the dire military situation. This was often more important that introspective
musings on the reasons the natives came to rebel.
59 ?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, January 20, 1904, Abend Beilage. It
mentions that ?man braucht die Kolonialpolitik nicht als eine Kulturmission und als die Bergl?ckung der
Eingebroenen mit deutscher Besittung enzusehen und kann sie als ein Gesch?ft und oft genug als ein hartes
und grausames Gesch?ft betrachten.?
35
natives ?thirsty for war.?60 Surely, this interpretation did not match the ideological views
of the paper?s readers. But it is significant that neither did it list alternative reasons, nor
did the editor mitigate the message, as happened so often. Native shortcomings, drink,
and idleness led to an irrational war against missionaries?their most important benefac-
tors, it noted ironically. As such, the paper took a cynical stance on German colonial pol-
icy, criticizing it for its role in one of the wars, but it was also acutely aware of the base-
ness of black Africans.
Other newspapers expounded on these more racial causes for Germany?s native
the wars. The Coburger Zeitung, claimed that the aberrant Herero war was primarily a
result of native ?perfidiousness,? ?antagonism,? and ?hostility? and as early as the 26th of
January advocated ?extermination? in order to rid the Herero of this charaecterological
shortcoming. This paper also cites the native?s ?criminal? and ?murderous? actions as
inherent to the conflict. The whites were victims of terrorizing masses of African natives,
intent on destroying white civilization.61 A year later, a similar story came out of East
Africa, where the colonial government had treated the natives far too leniently. Instead of
being thankful for fair treatment, the ?black race? had increased in vanity and mischief
until it sought to ascend to the level of white Europeans through gruesome and bestial
acts. The Dresdner Journal mentions in its first report of hostilities that ?the reasons for
the recent uprising [were] yet unknown.? It was quick to note that they look very much
like the South African ?Kaffern??dark brown with a smattering of lighter shades mixed
60 ?Die Unruhen in Deutsch-Ostafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 24, 1905. The author mentioned that
the conflict?s causes were not a result of rubber policy or mistreatment of the natives, if anything the oppo-
site was the case. Rather, ?es lag nur an der mangelden Energie der Eingeborenen und ihrer Schw?che;?
?Ein zweiter Punkt?Da wir d viel Bier gebraut und getrunken, und der wochenlang daurnde Rausch macht
schlieslich auch den sansmutigsten Neger kriegslustig.?
61 ?Kolonialpolitisches,? Coburger Zeitung, January 26, 1904. Racial and descriptive vocabulary includes
?hinterh?ltig,? ?wiederstreitend,? ?vernichtung,? ?rauberlische,? ?m?rderlische.?
36
in: a palette of iniquity.62 A week later, long after other papers published their musings on
the conflict?s origins, the Dresdner Journal maintained its stalwart skepticism, claiming
that the rationale for rebellion remained uncertain.63 Even Farmer Rolf noted the outra-
geous, irrational nature of the uprising. His Northern natives were peaceful!64 The onus
of the conflict, contrary to the version propagated in the Social Democratic and Leftist
presses, lay entirely on the natives, their ?perfidy? and irrationality caused these confron-
tations.
The Neue Preussische Zeitung continued this line of accusation. Content to leave
speculation on origins to others, the paper responded to the official missionary stance that
the natives?not the whites?were the victims. After denigrating the mission to civilize,
saying that attendance at school and church had been declining for some time before the
war, the paper attacked the notion that the settlers instigated this ?mire of sin and dis-
grace.? It claimed that even before the Germans and their civilizing presence arrived, the
natives ?were not angels.?65 Certainly Europeans did not instigate this conflict. Strangely,
only in December did the paper posit its own theory as to the causal factors of the con-
flict. It was not the then widely held belief that chauvinistic native and land policies
62 ?Kolonialpolitisches,? Dresdner Journal, January 14, 1904. ?Kaffer? is best translated as ?kaffir? or
?wog,? both pejorative terms for black Africans, particularly in South Africa. ?Die Gr?nde die die Herero
neuerdings zu einer Bewegung veranlasten sind noch unbekannt. Die Herero stehen korperlich den s?dafri-
kanischen Kaffern sehr nahe. Ihre Korperfarbe ist ein schwarzes Braun, doch sieht man auch gelbbraune
Herero.?
63 ?Der Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, January 21, 1904. ?Die Ursache des Hereros-Aufstandes
bleibt also noch unbekannt.?
64 ?Der Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, January 25, 1904. This report commented about the re-
bellion that ?wie ueberraschend der Aufstand der Hereros den Ansiedlern gekommen ist, ergibt auch ein
Schreiben des Farmers Rolfs?? who says: ?Im S ?den sind leider sehr ernste Unruhen ausgebro-
chen?Unsre Lag e hier im Norden ist be idem v?llig friedlichen Charakter unsrer Eingeborenen (Hereros)
v?llig gesichert.?
65 ?Der Aufstand in Deutsche-S?dwestafrika und die dortigen Missionen,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, Janu-
ary 23, 1904. It responded to allegations that the settlers began this ?Sumpf von S?nde und Schande.? And
it placed the blame on the natives, who ?die Eingeborenen schon vor ihrer Bekanntschaft mit den deutschen
Ansiedlern keine Engel waren.?
37
caused the rebellion; ?that cannot be the reason.? Rather, the Herero captain claimed to
have been visited in a dream and divinely inspired to throw off the imperial yoke. Still, it
was ?hard to give a clear picture of the uprising.?66 Even in the face of popular concep-
tions of the conflict, the Neue Preussische Zeitung continued to grasp at straws, citing
once again, the sub-standard intellect and reasoning of the Herero as the ultimate reason
for the conflict. This was more so the case a year later, at the outbreak of the Maji-Maji
War. In the middle of detailing the war?s tactics and strategy, it blamed African, tribal
magic and superstition for stoking the fires of rebellion.67 The Dresdner Journal averred
that the natives were too used to freedom, driving them into the ranks of the Herero and
irrationally distancing themselves from the social order that the Germans offered.68 Even
the Frankfurter Zeitung printed an editorial which claimed that ?the Hottentots decide
simply to destroy or not; plunder, escape, and action are their favorite existence?nomads
all have this character?European ways are lost on them.? 69 Written by an Englishman, it
attests at the very least to a global view of colonial conflict. These arguments, however,
did not seem to occupy the editors for very long. Perhaps their half-hearted, contrarian
66 ?Aufstand in S?dwestafrika,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, December 8, 1904. It notes that what others say
?nicht die Rede sein kann,? and that ?Es ist schwer, ?ber den Aufstand schon jetzt ein klares Bild zu ge-
ben.?
67 ?Aufstand in Ostafrika,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, September 1, 1905. In the region where ?Der Ein-
fluss der deutschen Behoerden ist dort gering,? ?die Makumbileute durch Hezereien eines Zauberes aufge-
wiegelt seien, wie dies auch amtlich gemeldet wurde, eine Nachricht, die hier in der Presse mehrfach bes-
poettelt wurde. Kenner der dortigen Zustaende versichern aber, dass die Neger ausserordentlich dem Aber-
glauben zugetan sind, und der Brief aus Kilwa besagt, dass die dortigen, im Dienst von Weissen stehenden
Schwarzen ueberzeugt seien, diser Zauberer sei halb Mensch, halb Schlange. Dieser nun habe den Makum-
bileuten untersagt, ferner fuer die Weissen zu arbeiten.?
68 ?Der Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, January 20, 1904. ?Es lag also nicht der mindeste Grund
vor, in die Loyalit?t und die Friedfertigkeit der Hereros im allgemeinen Zweifel zu fetzen. Immerhin blie-
ben die Hereros die Gegner der Staatlichen und gesellschaftlichen Ordnung, die wir ihnen doch schlieslich
aufzmingen m?ssen.?
69 ?Deutscher und Engl?nder in S?dafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 20, 1905. ?Denn den Hottentotten
macht es seinen Unterschied, ob sie ?geschlagen? sind oder nicht; fuer sie ist Pluendern, Ausweichen und
dann wieder Vorgehen die liebste Existenz. Dieses nomadische Volk had immer denselben Charakter ge-
habt.? ?Bei diesem Volk ist mit den europaeischen Methoden gar nichts auszurichten.?
38
suggestions reflected their ambivalence, while they stood firm on their recommendations
for war conduct and German reprisals.
More racist even than blaming the stupid Africans for rising up against the Euro-
peans, were their notions of post-war native relations and their visions of the future. To
be sure, the half of the press more apt to blame the colonists than the natives had their
own visions; they were just less clear. Overall, however, the future of Africa was highly
racialized. Even Vorw?rts dehumanized the Herero as it celebrated their exercise in vio-
lent agency. It almost reveled in the lusty, powerful mauling of the European settlers al-
beit with the instruments of Western dominance. It hardly evoked a human form, rather
that of some dangerous, exotic beast.70 While the newspaper as we have noted wanted
better treatment for the natives, it was not inclined to suggest that they were beyond the
help of white civilization. It criticized the mistreatment of ?Negers,? but above all it put
the missionaries to task for their silence and portioned blame to Oberst Leutwein as
well.71 In other words, the civilizing, christianizing mission failed its supposed beneficia-
ries. The civilizing mission was a positive force, in theory, but its silence made it compli-
cit in the inegalitarian system of imperial dominance. In a similar way, the NPZ hoped
that the civilizing mission had not suffered irreparably from the uprising. In the rightist
ranks, the missionaries still had a purpose, to sow the seeds of civilization so that some
?fruits? may be enjoyed.72
70 ??ber die Ursachen des Herero-Aufstandes,? Vorw?rts, January 28, 1904. After talking about the inequa-
lity of capitalist imperialism, the article notes ironically that "Nun, die Eingeborenen wird man einstweilen
kraftig mit Pulver und Blei traktieren!"
71 ?Ein neuer Arenberg,? Vorw?rts, August 19, 1904. ?Allerdings haben auch wir mehrfach konstatieren
muessen, dass dies Menschlichkeits- und Verantwortungsgefuehl bei weiten nicht so ausgepraegt war, wie
man das von Repraesentanten des Christentums und der Civilsation haette erwarten muessen. Die Missio-
nare haben viel zu lange geschwiegen und sind dann viel zu fr?h wieder verstummt!?
72 In its article on the missions from January 23, 1904 the NZP noted: ?Hoffen wir, dass nicht die Fr?chte
einer Arbeit verloren sind, welche mit so viel idealer Ausopferung seit vielen Jahren geleistet wurde!?
39
The Frankfurter Zeitung, as previously noted, was less optimistic about the pros-
pects of the civilizing mission, but it also had opinions on the future of the colonies and
Germany?s natives. Concerned about the bottom line, it advocated a less hands on stance.
As the war was still ongoing, the Frankfurter Zeitung suggested first that friendly natives
might be recruited to do Germany?s dirty work against the Herero, considering the ex-
pense and the difficulty of operationalizing a protracted colonial war.73 That same day, it
lamented that only the social democrats had objected to budgetary increases to help fund
the colonies, despite the extreme reservations of many politicians.74 Although it had sug-
gested that the war was ultimately the Germans? fault, the newspaper recognized what is
in the best interest of the German people. It pleaded with Trotha to recognize his enemy
and not to stir up the tribes that ?were quiet during the Herero rebellion.?75 Alienating all
of them would surely be a mistake. Yet, this plea came from self-interest. This is best ex-
emplified in the call for a new governor: ?If the previous governor [Leutwein] had been
there?he would have made greater use of the natives through his personal influence.? 76
Perhaps it pined for the days of Leutwein?s policy of ?divide and rule? over Trotha?s sin-
gular and destructive vision. Natives served a purpose, and treating them poorly was
counter-intuitive to that purpose. The Frankfurter Zeitung truly understood the value of a
worker, if it was loath to see blacks as humans. It was only rational to suggest that ?we
should finally see that without the natives as workers the colony is totally worthless.?77 A
73 ?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, January 20, 1904, Zweite Beilage.
74 ?Deutscher Reichstag. Der Nachtragsetat f?r S?dwestafrika?sozialdemokratische Interpellation ?ber
russische Polizeiagenten.,? Frankfurter Zeitung, January 20, 1904, Dritte Beilage.
75 ?Herr v. Trotha,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 19, 1905, Zweite Beilage.
76 ?Der Gouvernenwechsel in S?dwestafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 21, 1905. ?W?re Leutwein dort
geblieben?und sein pers ?nlischer Einfluss auf die Eingborenen w?re gerade dort von goreserem Nuutzen
gewesen.?
77 ?Die Unruhen in Deutsch-Ostafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 19, 1905. ?Wir sollten uns endlich
verstehen?denn ohne die Eingeborenen als Arbeiter ist die Kolonie doch voellig wertlos??
40
responsible German administration and rational use of colonial resources?including a
better native policy?was all the Frankfurter Zeitung could hope for.
Perhaps a more eerie vision of the future came from the pages of the Coburger
Zeitung, which advocated ?checking? the Herero with an ?iron fist.? To reverse the prior
?benevolent? German policy toward the natives would only turn them into Germany?s
favored children.78 A day later, it proudly reprinted a Kolnisher Zeitung piece that cele-
brated the death of the Herero tribe as a means to an end: the establishment of a cultural
haven of the ?first order? by whites. It called for the atonement of Herero guilt through
laboring for the erection of this onrushing culture. Further, it called for the placement of
chieftains of ?other tribes? into systems of observation, and it relished the prospect of ex-
tending the war to the Witbooi and other tribes in the south of the colony.79 During the
conflict in East Africa, the Coburger Zeitung suggested making the blacks utterly subser-
vient to the whites, averring that blacks should under no circumstances be educated. Edu-
cating the natives, in combination with their ?evil instincts? ?would not result in men,
rather beasts and traveling animals that did not murder alone.?80 Whites, by their own
kindness, have compromised their own safety. Exerting greater power, by this paper?s
logic, would restore that security. The Berliner Neuesten Nachrichten called for a mass
immigration not only of Germans but of whites from all around the world. It lamented the
?failure of the hitherto mild? native policy and called for ?extensive reductions of native
rights in retribution for their transgressions against the farmers.? Overall, it desired ?the
78 ?Zum Aufstand der Hereros,? Coburger Zeitung, January 26, 1904.
79 ?Aus dem Schutzgebieten,? Coburger Zeitung, August 15, 1904. the article also uses the language of
?putzen? or ?to clean up.? Helmut Walser Smith has discussed the development of eliminationist racism
and its language in The Continuities of German History, 167-210.
80 ?Unser Afrika,? Coburger Zeitung, August 25, 1905. It talks about the native?s 'bosen Instinkte," and it
advocated depriving the natives of education, otherwise "dann find es keine Menschen mehr, sondern Bes-
tien, reisende Tiere, die nicht allein morden."
41
elevation of Europeans over coloreds in every regard.?81 This was a highly racial concep-
tion of the future. One way of establishing this dynamic of power was discussed in nu-
merous papers: forced labor.
This theme, however, was not new to the overall discussion of colonial politics.
The future of the colonies was often conceptualized in utilitarian terms. The conflict only
exacerbated the suppositions of certain papers. As the news of violence in South West
Africa broke, the Neue Preussische Zeitung was already calling for the importation of
Chinese laborers to replicate the ongoing English experiment to the south. Because the
?hitherto spent kaffirs? no longer functioned well??whether because of numbers or be-
cause of endurance? or because they were ?indolent by nature and only worked? when on
the cusp of abject poverty?alternative sources of labor needed to be found. Whites
would not suffice, because they would be quick to demand rights and might for a ?prole-
tariat.? The obvious solution, ?with regards to the industrious character of the Chinese,?
was hiring ?oriental lorries.?82 A progress report on the English experiment with ?coo-
lies,? mentions that an outbreak of Beriberi sickness clouded some of the optimism sur-
rounding the project. Yet, ?in every other aspect of their health the coolies [we]re extra-
ordinarily good,? and the benefits extended to white and black worker alike. Far from a
competition with the ?yellow workers,? white workers seemed to have taken to the Chi-
81 ?Kein Lamm Durfen Sie Behalten,? Berliner Neuesten Nachrichten cited in ?Aus anderen Bl?tter,?
Vorw?rts, Feb 2, 1904. The BNN was a very conservative newspaper. In this article a military man with
experience in the colonies advocated the ?hebung der Stellung des Europaers dem Farbigen gegenuber in
jeder Beziehung;? he wrote that the about the native policy as being ?verfehlte bisherige milde (!);? and he
called for ?weitgehende Einschr?nkung der Rechte der aufruehrerischen Eingeborenenstaemme zu Gunsten
der schwer gesch?digten und bisher im Verhaeltnes zu den Eingeborenen oft recht stiefm?tterlich behandel-
ten (!) weissen Farmer.? The exclamation points were included in the Vorw?rts version, presumably be-
cause the paper did not agree with the statements or thought they were outrageous.
82 ?Der chinesiche Arbeit in S?dafrika,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 15, 1904: ?Es fehlt an Arbei-
tern zur Ausbeutung der Minen. Der bisher verwendete Kaffer genuegt nicht mehr?weder an Zahl, noch in
Bezug auf Ausdauer. Indolent von Natur, arbeitet er nur, wenn er von der Not dazu getrieben wird;? ?Die
Bedenken waren sowohl materieller wie moralischer Art. Im Hinblick auf den industriellen Character der
Chinesen.?
42
nese. Incidentally the rejuvenation of the ?Neger? ranks was surmised to be a result of
their origin of procurement. Central Africans were far healthier than those in the South.83
The conflict in East Africa may have blocked some inroads to spreading German culture,
but the Dresdner Journal hoped that technological advance would help to ?naturally ele-
vate the baser culture.? The natives would be assigned ?primary work? leading to this
elevation and ?spread in every direction.? It also ?hope[d] that much would come out of
cotton culture,? particularly making the most of the ?natives abilities.?84 Conflict did not
change these previous notions of the potential of the natives, but it amplified the calls and
the vehemence driving them. Conflict shook the Germans and the white settlers out of
their complacency, enraging some and driving others to despairing notions of a monolith-
ic struggle between white civilization and black chaos.
Strands of this racial competition have been discussed already; the article from the
Berliner Neueste Nachrichten stressed the supremacy of the white race in comparison to
the black masses. The Kolnisher Zeitung and the Coburger Zeitung both called for the
establishment of a white cultural order in which blacks would be ultimately subservient.
Even Vorw?rts and the Frankfurter Zeitung alluded to some large conflict with their crit-
icisms of colonial policy and the mission to civilize. It is easy to read the panic and over-
reaction in many of these articles. Often, however, these themes came to the fore in the
logic of colonial politics. The Dresdner Journal, for example, called for the lessons of
South West Africa??a strong hand does not fail??to be learned, in order become a
83 ?Afrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 20, 1904. ?In jeder anderen Beziehung sei der Gesundheitszustand
der Kulis ausserordentlisch gut;? ?Von seiten der Schwarzen fand keinerlei feindfelige Rundgebung gegen
die gelben Arbeiter statt, und die weissen Minenarbeiterr scheinen die Chinesen sogar mit grosser Genug-
tuung zu empfangen.?
84 ?Kolonialpolitisches,? Dresdner Journal, October 8, 1904. ?Das Nat?rliche ist nur die Hebung der Bo-
denkultur;? ?man die fremden Bev?lkerungen selber die Hauptarbeit tun l?st und sie nur in jeder Richtung
stuetzt;? ?gem?s dem Verm?gen der Bev?lkerung.?
43
great colonial power. The competition to divide the remaining portions ?of the black
areas of the world? through ?different means and methods,? however, did not pit Germa-
ny against its colonial rivals. Rather, cooperation between Germany and, primarily, Eng-
land was ?in the best interests of the white population of Africa;? the battles in South
West Africa were microcosmic, and by writing about Germany?s fight ?England was
writing about the state of all whites?and the victory of German weapons against the n a-
tive population of Africa will be exceedingly beneficial in the eyes of the white race.?85
Although the same article pondered the material value of the colonies, Africa was viewed
as exceedingly important as a racial battlefield. It was to be a victory of the white race, in
cooperation, against the entire population of Africa. A Frankfurter Zeitung editorial also
recommends general European cooperation. The author, an English colonial advocate in
South Africa, also wanted a reciprocal colonial relationship between England and Ger-
many. His ultimate fear was the Hottentot uprising spreading into South Africa from the
north, but he expressed it as a fear of the ?growth of the coloreds against the whites.?86
As we have seen, the variety of interpretations on the war, their opponents, and
what it all meant corresponded to the numbers of newspapers, editors, and journalists that
discussed them. Even within newspapers, there was often considerable variation. This
contributed to a discourse on race and colonial policy that turned out to be multi-faceted
and diverse. Yet, these discussions, while superficially diverse, bled into and were in-
85 ?Afrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 26, 1904: ?nach verschiedene Methode und mit verschiedenen Mit-
teln;? ?des Schwarzen Erdteils;? ?eine starke Hand nicht fehlen darf;? ?Auch der deutsche Aussenhandel
w?rde von einer solchen Abmachung, die al seine wirksame Foerderung der witeren Kolonisierung Afrikas
anzusehen waere, wesentliche Vorteile erwarten duerfen, muss doch jede Massnahme, die dem Interesse
der weissen Bev?lkerung in Afrika dient, willkommen deheissen werden, ebenso wie k?rzlich ein engliches
Blatt mit Recht hervorgehoben hat, dass der Kampf, den Deutschland gegenw?rtig in S?dwestafrika f?hrt,
die Sache aller Weissen ist und dass der nicht zu bezweifelnde Sieg der deutschen Waffen dem Ansehen
der weissen Rasse bei der einheimischen Bev?lkerung Afrikas in hohem Masse zu statten kommen muss.?
86 ?Deutscher und Engl?nder in S?dafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 20, 1905. ?Das Wachsen der Ab-
neidigung der Farbigung gegen die Weissen.?
44
formed by much larger debates. Rather than simply discussing their African holdings and
the populations therein, these newspapers viewed, interpreted, and wrote through a do-
mestic political/social lens. Commentary on colonial conflict rarely stopped just at that;
rather it was also a way to discuss other concerns. There were multiple layers of meaning
in the discourse coming out of the colonial wars, and although these were as diverse as
the primary discussion, certain themes manifested. The next part will identify some of
these debates.
Beyond Racial Language
As the Herero surge holed German settlers in their scattered strongholds, politi-
cians in Berlin met to discuss sending additional troops and material. Even in such dire
straits, when conservatives and radicals alike voted yes to massive additions to the co-
lonial budget, August Bebel and his Social Democrats comprised the only opposition to
the proceedings. Although their reservations extended only so far as to abstain from the
vote, Bebel made his party?s stance on the current colonial regime and the situation in
South West Africa sufficiently clear. A day later, Bebel was derided in the nationalist
press; the Corburger Zeitung, for example, criticized his ?kowtowing? to the upstart Af-
ricans and calling him ?hereroish.?87 Surely, the journalists and editors of the newspaper
were not accusing the vocal politician of having no culture or civilization, nor did they
consider him of a lesser race. Rather, through the use of colonially and racially charged
words and ideas, the Coburger Zeitung attacked Bebel?s stance, his party, his credibility,
and above all his patriotism. Without such language, the newspaper could easily have
87 ?Der ?hereroische? Bebel,? Coburger Zeitung, January 17, 1904. It mentions that ?Der ?hereroische? Be-
bel? will ?kautau? to the native insurgents.
45
written a more scathing indictment, but the trends mentioned above offered another way
for the multifarious discussion in the press to observe other aspects of German reality.
Specifically, these racial notions provided ammunition for salvos fired in the realm of
politics, especially as Germany became increasingly nation-centered, and they offered an
alternative forum to comment on German society.
The Politics of Conflict and Race
German politics during the period of most intense colonial conflict, 1904 to 1907,
is best characterized as a showdown over the role, importance, and meaning of the nation.
The wars in German East Africa and South West Africa proved especially significant in
the politics of the nation. If the 1880s and 1890s witnessed the rise of the Social Demo-
cratic party to being the largest and at least the second most powerful political faction in
the Reichstag, it came at the cost of polarizing politics into nationalists and non-
nationalists. Three different times in the 90s, the government was dissolved and elections
brought in increasingly nation-oriented politicians. That is not to say that both the trans-
national socialists and the skeptical center/Catholic party waned in numbers and influ-
ence. Rather, they accomplished two things. First, as noted by Sheehan, they forced the
Left Liberal party into the conservative ranks. Having suffered a decades-long crisis of
ideology and identity, the Left Liberals were forced to make a decision regarding their
stance on the shape the nation should take and the influence it would have. Second, the
subsequent move to the political right?with the national parties and the various conserv-
ative parties?allowed the ascendant conservative bloc to force their hand on such na-
tional issues as militarism, the navy, and colonialism. The division of politics into three
46
primary spheres of influence and varying numbers of ?radicals? parties?Poles, Guelphs,
etc.?provided the background for yet another watershed dissolution of parliament in
1906, elections to be the next year. 1907, thus, proved an important date to the future of
the national program.88
Significant to the timing of this reshuffling of the Reichstag was the surge in na-
tive violence and the questions these raised regarding other important, national issues.
Response to the violence and to the increasing of colonial and military budgets?the ul-
timate indicator of national motivations?were simply the culmination of years of politi-
cal debate over the same issues whipped up into a frothy, patriotic head. On one side of
the long standing argument over the military, navy matters, and imperial aspirations were
the conservatives, recently joined by the National and soon the Left Liberals, as sympa-
thetic with these nationalist policies. ?Prussian? conservatives, primarily concerned about
military strength and the maintenance of the monarchy, and ?German? conservatives,
who cared more about business and industrial concerns, both supported the national
project. They supported all military bills and patriotically supported all naval and colonial
enterprises. The National Liberals even more enthusiastically supported the Empire?s na-
tional program. The party of the middle classes, they counted among their numbers some
88 James J. Sheehan has written the premier monograph on German liberalism in the 20th century, giving an
entire chapter to the political/ideological crises it faced in the Wilhelmine era, James Sheehan, German
Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 239-257. Gordon
Craig, Germany: 1866-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 251-271 details the difficulties the
Reichstag faced structurally, mentioning that this time period was one of shifting blocs of influence and
impotence in the face of economic and military interests. George Crothers has written about the 1907 elec-
tions?otherwise known as the Hottentot elections?as a watershed event in the gathering momentum of
the national movement in The German Elections of 1907 (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1968), 11-18 and
239-249.; Alastair P. Thompson, Left Liberals, the State, and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7-23. He puts into greater perspective the fractious nature of politics
both within and among parties. His account attempts to deconstruct the Left Liberals, noting the incredible
influence of local interests and the ideological variance between rural and urban, regional and national
fragments of the party.
47
of the leading industrialists and the most distinguished professors, who had long ago al-
lowed their nationalism to eclipse their liberalism. And despite their descent from the
heights of Bismarck?s chancellorship, they comprised an able and significant bloc of na-
tionalists. 89
On the other side of the national fence were the center party?the Catholic par-
ty?and the Social Democrats, the two most significant political groups at odds especial-
ly with the liberal/conservative stance on colonialism. The Centrists were not contrary to
the national project per se. From 1897 they had often voted for military, naval, and co-
lonial endeavors, but they nearly always fought to mitigate or dilute these bills? impacts,
severely denting national aspirations. In regards to colonial policy, the Center party?in
reality a confessional, Catholic party?supported imperial expansion as long as the intent
was to civilize and spread Christianity to the natives. As such it frequently attacked Ger-
man native policy, business practices, and the bureaucratic walls erected against the mis-
sionaries. Although they voted at the outbreak of the war in South West Africa to send
additional troops and material, their criticisms of colonial policy and exaggerated liberal
perceptions of their relation to the church and the Pope caused B?low to consider them
?enemies within the gates.?90 Despite their recent complicity with regards to colonialism,
the view persisted that they were anti-national. Lumped together with the center party
with B?low?s ignominious tag were the Social Democrats, whose opinions of national
projects were far less flexible. Social Democrats had remained vehemently anti-national;
it was fundamental to their party platform. They opposed military bills, naval bills, and
89 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947 (London: Penguin,
2007), 603-606. Clark?s assessment of the colonial project is surrounded by the Prussian military estab-
lishment?s dangerous programme to extend military powers through bureaucratic means. His is a look at
the nationalization of Germany and Prussia through militarization.
90 Craig, Germany, 280.
48
imperial acquisition. Dogmatically, they opposed capitalism, and since imperialism was
capitalist, they opposed it as well. They attacked the logic of imperialism on other fronts,
however, claiming that it was hardly conducive to capitalist economic growth and that it
weakened rather than strengthened the German geopolitical position. They also, although
it was the weakest in their arsenal of arguments, fought against imperialism on humanita-
rian grounds. The contrarian voices within the party advocating more ideological flexibil-
ity were far too few to make a difference. Unraveling rapidly for other internal reasons,91
the Social Democrats were too weak to stand alone, despite their numerical strength.
These numbers would prove futile under B?low?s sustained attack.
Prior to the dissolution of the Reichstag in 1906, the national project had encoun-
tered some resistance, primarily the center party and the Social Democrats, but a 1905
Socialist/center opposition to cavalry increases as well as vitriolic anti-Catholic sentiment
among his advisors forced B?low to act. In order to succeed in his stated policy to unite
the nation through foreign policy, he ?decided to break with the Center party and to
create a new coalition by means of an electoral campaign based on nationalism, anti-
socialism, and appeals to the latent anti-Catholicism that existed in certain parts of the
country.?92 He ran the subsequent campaign with the aid of colonial, Pan-German, and
Naval Leagues, viciously attacking the Center Party and Social Democrats. He manipu-
lated the patriotism of the average voter, urging him to punish these ?enemies? for ignor-
ing the national interest?or the interests of nationalist foreign policy. The resulting elec-
tions gave the B?low bloc a slim majority, even without the Center party. More than the
91 Primarily their failure to control and motivate the trade unions, a crippling reality; still, the Social Demo-
crats remained a staunch opponent, who none wanted to bargain with: ?the price of collaboration with the
working class was social and political change that [the conservatives and center party] thought they could
not afford.? Craig, Germany, 269.
92 Ibid., 280, 279-284.
49
tenuous majority B?low?s conservative grouping achieved, the Centrists and the Social
Democrats learned a harsh lesson about the rising nationalism in Germany. Taking their
cue from the election, they tempered their staunch opposition to ?national interests,? the
center party drifting towards the right in that regard, and the Social Democrats deciding
to choose their battles more carefully. Thus, the colonies were deeply significant to the
rightward shift in German politics as World War I approached. Conflicts in Germany?s
South West and East African colonies were the proverbial straws that shattered all resis-
tance to political nationalism.93
B?low?s efforts, his adept use of propaganda and his mobilization of the masses,
were certainly central to the political pendulum swinging once again to the right. The
press, however, also served as a vehicle for discussion in these matters. They did so
overtly, of course, but conflict with natives also offered journalists and editors another
lens through which to view the political drama in Berlin. Specifically, the racial language
inherent to discussing the causes of the war and its eventual ideal outcome simultaneous-
ly stressed the importance, or the evils, of militarism and nationalism. Similarly, it of-
fered a way to attack political opponents of colonialism and the national project?
namely, the Social Democrats and the Center Party. Finally, it reflected the Left Liberal
shift to the right.
As I have already sought to express, attempts to explain the wars in East and
South West Africa as well as ideal conduct and outcomes of each were central to the cov-
erage of native conflict. These were at once broadly racist, and they were also a commen-
93 See also Crothers, The German Elections of 1907, 11-61. This comprises the topic of Crothers whole
book; he gives space to the background, the election, the figures, and the aftermath of the election.
50
tary on the national project gaining momentum in Germany.94 As the majority of the
newspapers used in this study give good indication to the conservative aspect of this de-
bate, it is fair to say that the Center party and Social Democratic voices go underrepre-
sented. As such, much of the content of these papers promoted some aspect of B?low?s
national program, if not all of it. It has been noted that these have coincided in history
with extreme domestic persecution of minorities?Jews, Poles, and gypsies?and that the
Kaiserreich witnessed some of the most drastic instances of this national mentality.95 This
was done overtly, particularly in regards to militaristic nationalism, in the conservative
press. The Coburger Zeitung, the Neue Preussische Zeitung and the Dresdner Journal all
elevated the military in the colonies to a heroic level, recounting their bravery and sacri-
fice while stoking the patriotic fires at home. Each newspaper printed the Kaiser?s mes-
sage to his departing troops; each mentioned the newly created military award designated
to commemorate the soldier that ?died for King and Empire? and ?honor their memo-
ry.?96 Similarly, they tugged on the empathetic, patriotic heartstrings of the German na-
tion by mentioning the ?hardships? their military faced in South West Africa. Alterna-
tively, they suggested that it was the duty of both the people and the government to sup-
port the military and ?be thankful for the men who risk their lives and health for honor of
94 A good indicator of this was the Neue Preussische Zeitung?s article ?Anruf zur Mitarbeit behufs Ermitte-
lung noch heute gebr?uchlicher deutscher Namensformen f?r Orte in fremden Sprachgebieten,? January 14,
1904. Even before news of the conflicts had reached German telegraph machines, the NZP was advocating
a global/nationalist project to spread German language and influence to their parts of the world. It was si-
milarly a call to undertake this project on Germany?s terms, not on those of perhaps the more powerful co-
lonizing powers.
95 Panikos Panayi, Ethnic Minorities in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany: Jews, Gypsies, Poles,
Turks, and Others (Edinburgh: Longman, 2000), 68-72.
96 ?Der Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, August 29, 1904. The inscription on the medal read:
?Starb f?r Kaiser und Reich. Ehre seinem Andenken.? It was only for those that died. It does not mention
whether there is a medal for those that survived.
51
the fatherland.?97 The military was thus depicted as an overwhelmed, but honorable,
corps of men fatalistically condemned. Juxtaposed to the honorable, patriotic man in the
military, the natives wreaked incredible havoc with their ?murderous hands,? ?perfi-
dious? and ?antagonistic? nature, and their savagery in numbers. The danger at hand de-
humanized the natives, as we have already seen, but it also cast the military in a favorable
light, the true representatives and saviors of Germans and German culture.
In searching for the causes and solutions to the conflicts at hand, by dehumanizing
the natives and describing their appearance and actions in frightening, racially charged
ways, the conservative press also promoted national and military interests. Naturally, the
conservative response to the conflict?s outbreak was to call for more troops to bring sta-
bility and punish the natives. The explanation for the apostasy of the ?hitherto German-
friendly?98 natives often turned to the irrationality of the natives, but this was often tied to
claims that a greater military presence might have prevented the conflict.99
97 ?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 18, 1905. ?das deutsche Volk mit
dieser Teilnahmlosigkeit eine grosse Ungerechtigkeit gegen seine S?hne, die in dem fernen Lande mit ei-
nem schonungslosen Gegner k?mpfen?. These men, Germany?s sons, must endure hardships of climate and
poor food to face a possible ?gauenhaftes Ende unter den Moerderhaenden der Aufstaendischen.? Ultimate-
ly, this is about SWA and supplying the troops there adequately. ?Das deutsche Volk hat die Pflicht, den
M?nnern dankbar zu sein, die ihr Leben und ihre Gesundheit f?r die Ehre des Vaterlands in die Schanzen
schlagen, und wir hoffen dass wenn erst diese Empfindung wieder allgemein zum Durchbruch werden, die
so manchen unserer Soldaten jetzt beseelen, wenn er bei der Rueckkehr in die Heimat auch teilnahmlosen
Mangel an Verst?ndnis fuer die Leistungen vor dem Feinde st?tzt, nicht nur im Volk, sondern auch bei
Pers?nlichkeiten, die besser unerrichtet sein muesten.? As for the government, all three stressed the ade-
quate supplying of the troops, while slagging off the segments of the government that opposed such ac-
tions. A good example is the article ?Deutsche Reichstag,? Dresdner Journal, January 20, 1904. It men-
tions that stopping the natives is directly linked to Germany?s ?nationale Ehre.?
98 ?Aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 14, 1904. This was the first
report on the conflict and noted with some incredulity that the Herero had been ?bisher deutschfreundlich.?
99 ?Vom Aufstand der Hereros,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 20, 1904. ?Nach den bestehenden
Vortschriften muessen die Kapitulationen auf die Dauer von 3.5 Jahren abgeschlossen werden. Die
Zur?ckf?hrung der Truppe auf den normalen Mannschaftstand kann also auch nach Benndigung des Aufs-
tandes nur nach Massgabe des Ablaufes der Kapitulationen in der Weise erfolgen?? Also, ?Aus anderen
Bl?ttern,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 21, 1904 which talks about the need to learn the military les-
sons of the conflict.
52
Yet, the conservative press was more concerned with the future of the colony, indicative
of their focus on the process of national strengthening in the metropole. The Social
Democrats and proponents of the Center Party, however, entered the equation by oppos-
ing militarism and colonialism.
Of course, the Social Democratic press attacked the military build up in the colo-
nies overtly as uneconomical and inhumane. But it also attacked Bulow?s national pro-
gram through descriptions of the natives and their conduct in the war. As the initial stages
of the war witnessed the crippling of German military hegemony in the colony, Vorw?rts
both animalized the natives and celebrated the military reverses and the symbolically vio-
lent demise of the national program, when it wrote that the natives were ?powerfully?
?mauling? the settlers with the German?s own weapons. The military was counter-
productive to the process of civilizing and establishing control, since it was an instrument
of this colonial ?system of exploitation.?100 Only its destruction would bring order. This
same danger was inherent to Germany. The German military was the greatest threat to the
nation, not the various ?others? external and internal to the nation?which the conserva-
tives cared much more about. The Social Democratic press dwelled primarily on the eco-
nomic and humanitarian impacts of the colonies on Germany and the natives. These im-
plications were revolutionary; the military was seen equally as oppressors of the workers
and the lower classes as well as the masses of Africans under the colonial flag, The Cen-
ter party, unfortunately, has not factored into this debate, but their criticisms were best
vocalized through the missionaries themselves, whose criticisms of colonialism were
100 ?Ueber die Ursachen des Herero-Aufstandes,? Vorw?rts, Jan 28, 1904. "Nun, die Eingeborenen wird
man einstweilen kraftig mit Pulver und Blei traktieren!" This was all a response to what even the Frankfur-
ter Zeitung called the colonial ?Ausbeutungsystem.? The Social Democratic press agreed whole-heartedly
with the Left Liberal views on the colonial system, if not the future of the colony or the course of action.
53
primarily humanitarian and offered nothing to the ongoing debate over the national ques-
tion. The conservative press was more focused in their notions of the shape post-conflict
Africa would take.
The Coburger Zeitung presented a spectacularly structured vision of the future,
hoping to wipe out their antagonistic enemies in order to establish a settlement of high
civilization and culture. The labor for the erection of this civilization would be provided
by the subjugated classes of native workers, the Herero at first and hopefully the Basters
and Witbooi in short order. The establishment of German civilization through a struc-
tured military policy of ?Vernichtung,? a ?hard fist? and through the spreading of the
?thunderous words of Martin Luther?101 mirrors the domestic national project as well as
the political intricacies in Berlin. Militarism, the hard fist, was viewed as crucial to unite
and uplift the colonies, but it was also viewed as a uniting factor in the construction of a
strong German nation. Racial language advocated the rise of militarism and by extension
the national program. Beside the reification of the military through the telling of heroic
tales102, labeling them martyrs103, and printing the Kaiser?s adieu to the departing
troops104, it was also seen as crucial to the stabilization of the colonies and the establish-
ment of a strong nation.
101 These examples come from articles in the Coburger Zeitung from January 26 and 29, both entitled ?Zum
Aufstand der Hereros? and those from August 15 and 24, 1904, the former entitled ?Kolonialpolitisches?
and the latter entitled ?Aufstand in S?dwestafrika.?
102 ?Zum Aufstand der Hereros,? Coburger Zeitung, January 18, 1904. This article talks about a soldier that
held of attacks with a revolver and a machine gun until he ultimately fell in battle.
103 See for example ?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 18, 1905.
104 Wilhelm?s farewell to his troops on the eve of battle: ?Ich erwarte dass ihr durch Tapferkeit Mannszucht
und Pflichttreue dem Ruf der deutschen Armee Ehre machen werdet, dann wird?s euch nicht schwer fallen,
den frechen Aufst?ndischen die verdiente Strafe zuteil werden zu lassen. Gott sei mit euch! Wilhelm.?
Every newspaper printed this message, but Vorw?rts was the only one to follow that by enumerating the
absurdities of sending additional troops.
54
The Dresdner Journal also called for stability through racial explanations of the
Herero. Because of their fickle loyalty and irrationality?the primary traits of the Here-
ro?they became ?the opponents of state and social order,? something that Germany
would have to correct. Sending greater numbers of troops, swiftly and thoroughly defeat-
ing the natives, and completely disarming them, would serve the best interests of the mili-
tary and the colony. Similarly, the solution to the problem of division, military streng-
thening, became the solution to opposition to state and social order. The conflict in South
West Africa became another battleground for commentary on the ongoing national
project. Problems of state and social order were best solved by the military. At the same
time, the Center and Social Democratic parties were targeted for their opposition.
Through criticizing the fractious nature of native chieftains and the resulting turn from
the benefits of German civilization constituted a simultaneous challenge to the perceived
anti-national forces in Berlin. Opposition was as base an undertaking in Germany as it
was for the natives, and the interests of German civilization suffered as a result.105 At-
tacks on these parties ran through much of the commentary on the natives and their take
on native policy.
Conservative assaults on the Center and Social Democratic resistance to increas-
ing the colonial budget and allotting for a greater military presence were overtly ex-
pressed. They continued to stress the need for military strength, for victory and stability?s
sake. They derided the segment of ?the German people that (by refusing to support the
military increases in 1905) were doing an extreme disservice against their sons, who were
105 ?Zum Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, January 20, 1904.
55
dying in foreign lands.?106 But the frequent criticisms of the left and center parties by the
conservative parties were also evident in their musings on the conduct of the war and the
shape the colonies would take afterwards. The utopian notion of the future found in the
Coburger Zeitung, for example, was to be guided by the spirit and teachings of the Prot-
estant hero of Germany, amounting to an attack on the Catholic party. Another attack on
the center came from the Neue Preussische Zeitung who patronizingly ?hoped that the
fruits of the labor? of the civilizing mission were not lost, while simultaneously listing
the limits of its success and possibilities.107 At the same time, the Coburger Zeitung deni-
grated the Socialist leader as engaging in an act of ?yellow? deference and also by equat-
ing him to an inferior, albeit dangerous, enemy of the nation. Native rights also proved to
be fertile territory for mudslinging as well. The Neue Preussische Zeitung criticized the
colonial reforms that liberalized native policy following the outrage of the Herero geno-
cide. Specifically, it went after leftist attempts to grant native rights. There was not need
to understand the native, nor was there any reason to give the natives rights, when it
could deter Germany from benefiting from a newly discovered source of coal, for exam-
ple. The racially utilitarian nature of natives in extracting resources was paramount to any
silly leftist scheme that worked counter to the military and economic interests of Germa-
ny.108
106 ?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 18, 1905. It criticized the lack of
support they perceived in Germany for the soldiers in Africa, saying ?das deutsche Volk mit dieser Teil-
nahmlosigkeit eine grosse Ungerechtigkeit gegen seine S?hne, die in dem fernen Land emit einem scho-
nungslosen Gegner k?mpfen??
107?Der Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika und die dortigen Missionen.,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, Janu-
ary 23, 1904. It mentioned the journalist?s ?sincere? hopes that ?Hoffen wir, dass nicht die Fr?chte einer
Arbeit verloren sind, welche mit so viel idealer Ausopferung seit vielen Jahren geleistet wurde!? It was
quick to note, however, that ?die Eingeborenen schon vor ihrer Bekanntschaft mit den deutschen Ansied-
lern keine Engel waren.?
108 ?Reformfragen des deutschen Kolonialrechts.,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, July 9, 1907. ?Letztere, die
zum grossen Teil noch g?nzlich unbekannt sind, aufzudenken und zu fixieren, ist ein um so dringenderes
56
Other papers and ideologies became involved in the attacks as well. The Social
Democratic newspaper was wont to go after their Center Party rivals as well, attacking
the civilizing mission?s silence in the face of such heinous abuses. Their primary criti-
cisms were reserved for the conservatives, however. Their vituperative railings against
settler conduct and against the bureaucratic failings of Berlin, colonial administrators
and, later, the military often emerged from descriptions of the barbaric treatment of na-
tives. Although humanitarian concerns were significant to the argument, these attacks
were intended to be political galvanizations pointing out the hypocrisy of the government
and the wastage of the colonies. It is, however, significant that race and native policy
provided significant ammunition to arguments over taxation, for example, that had very
little to do with the natives themselves. Even identity seeking parties entered the political
fray over colonial excesses and failures, appropriating the language of race along the
way.
The Left Liberals also recognized and exposed the futility of the civilizing mis-
sion from the outset of the conflict in South West Africa; to them, the natives were
beyond improvement. Yet, this evolving party, which found a voice through the Frank-
furter Zeitung, also came to criticize their compatriots on the right of center. The paper
only did so for one year, but at the outbreak of the conflict, it criticized the manifestation
of German colonialism. It pointed out the shortcomings of the missions despite the civi-
lizing rhetoric in Berlin and the colonies, and it criticized the way in which the settlers
had behaved in instigating the natives to rebellion. A year later, however, perhaps an in-
Bed?rfnis geworden, also grunds?sslich ueber die Eingeborenen nach ihren eigenen Normen Recht gespro-
chen werden soll. Jede derartige Justiz fesst nat?rlich in erster Linie die genaue Kenntnis jener Normen
voraus. Obwohl sich Kohlen durch seine Forschungen auf diesem Gebiet schon grosse Verdienste erwor-
den hat, ist doch ein planm?ssiges Erforscchen des Eingeborenenrechts von Staats wegen unerl?tzlich.?
57
dicator of the party?s rightward shift into Bulow?s national bloc, the paper only released a
military man?s interpretation of the events in East Africa. Far more critical of the natives
and supportive of harsher military solutions, it appeared that the paper?s notion of the
power, role, and importance of the state and order had changed. Allowing the military to
speak through it represents a dramatic shift in the Frankfurter Zeitung?s approach to the
conflicts in South West Africa and East Africa. It suggested that the paper?s skepticism
had given way to more stringent support of the conservative, national stance. It also sug-
gested that it had fewer reservations about considering the natives to be tools for a greater
national purpose.109
These notions of race, of the power of the state in building a visionary colonial fu-
ture, the military?s role in that conversation, and the internal and external enemies that
plan faced bespoke another important discourse underlying these conversations. This one,
however, dealt with a European wide epidemic of democratization, the fear of the masses,
and the fear of the degeneration of society. The native enemy and German attempts to
understand him were tainted in the press by commentary on the condition of European
society.
Native Conflict and the Masses of Europe
It would be easy to place the social questions that these discourses address in a
simply German context. As we will see, however, the discussion of natives tends to in-
109 Contrasting the articles on August 17, 1905 and August 24, 1905 on German East Africa and the ones
covering the outbreak of conflict in South West Africa are very revealing. The paper continues to call for
responsible governing of the colonies, but that responsibility comes from the military now. The military
had better candidates to lead than von Trotha, who was derided in the Frankfurter Zeitung several times,
most overtly on the 17th and 21st of August: ?Die Truppentransporte nach S?dwestafrika? and ?Der Gou-
vermerwechsel in S?dwestafrika.?
58
volve the language of ?whites? against ?blacks.? This monolithic showdown between the
races crossed borders, forcing German and English colonial commentators alike to con-
template greater cooperation among the European powers, no matter how unpalatable that
many have seemed. Thus, it is better to understand this discourse in terms of a European
caste of imperialists and nationalists faced with the menace of the increasingly influential
lower classes of society. This conversation was debated along ideological lines within
Germany, but it was also a European concern. As German newspapers reported the news
from Africa, it was charged with what Nipperdey calls the ?question of society.?110 Spe-
cifically, these papers expressed this fear through the amalgamation and exaggeration of
African native tribes. They commented on the base living standards, values, and morals
of the European masses through their descriptions or the native belligerents and their
enumerated atrocities. Finally, they also stressed the importance of class demarcation. At
times the Herero and the Matumbi native took the shape of the downtrodden European
worker, for better or for worse.
The language of competition between races manifested in the press as a reaction
to the troubles in Germany?s colonies and to opposition to the national program at home.
It drove some conservative presses to aver that the division of the ?black world? ?through
different means and methods? was almost complete. The resulting battle between races
was best solved with a ?strong hand? and cooperation between the colonial powers. ?The
values of all whites will be served by the victory of German arms over the native inhabi-
tants of Africa.?111 Cooperation with the English was also discussed by the Left Liberal
110 Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte.
111 ?Afrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 26, 1904. ?Auch der deutsche Aussenhandel wuerde von einer sol-
chen Abmachung, die al seine wirksame F?rderung der witeren Kolonisierung Afrikas anzusehen w?re,
wesentliche Vorteile erwarten d?rfen, muss doch jede Massnahme, die dem Interesse der wiessen Bev?lke-
59
Frankfurter Zeitung, which noted the alarming rise of the natives in relation to the whites
and suggested that the solution could be found in American treatment of their own
blacks.112 Colonizing powers peered over each other?s shoulders, despite their foreign
rivalries. The Kreuzzeitung also suggested sharing information with England and France
to avoid such uprisings. In theory these ideas were probably justified, but considering the
acrimony between nations over colonial borders and regional influence?arguments over
Morocco almost started a war, for example?it was impossible in practice. Yet, they
spoke to other issues as well. Just as conservative newspapers hoped that the process of
colonization could be eased by western, white cooperation, this white versus black men-
tality was predicated on the fear of the masses and the baseness of their culture; this was
a European problem.
Daniel Pick has studied the problem of the masses and society, although through
the lens of nineteenth century scientific and anthropological discourse. He has mentioned
that ?evolutionary anthropology functioned not only to differentiate the colonized over-
seas from the imperial race, but also to scrutinize portions of the population at home: the
?other was outside and inside.?113 With the rise of the masses, fears of social degenera-
tion?from the storing up of pathologies in the lower classes to fears that the sun may
die?haunted both the left and right of Europe?s political hierarchies. To them, ?society
was an organism threatened by death.?114 Certainly, this was tied to widespread Social
rung in Afrika dient, willkommen deheissen werden, ebenso wie k?rzlich ein engliches Blatt mit Recht
hervorgehoben hat, dass der Kampf, den Deutschland gegenw?rtig in S?dwestafrika f?hrt, die Sache aller
Weissen ist und dass der nicht zu bezweifelnde Sieg der deutschen Waffen dem Ansehen der weissen Rasse
bei der einheimischen Bev?lkerung Afrikas in hohem Masse zu statten kommen muss.?
112 ?Deutscher und Engl?nder in S?dafrika,? Frankfurter Zeitung, August 21, 1905. It fears the ?Das Wach-
sen der Abneidigung der Farbigung gegen die Weissen ist nicht zu verkennen und wird von amerikanishcen
Negern geshuert.?
113 Daniel Pick, Faces of Degeneration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 39.
114 Ibid., 32.
60
Darwinist ideology as well as the increasingly scientific nature explications of society, a
broad European trend. Pick?s account, although one would expect the supremely racist
Germans to enter at some point, considers only England, France, and Italy. To consider
the west as some monolithic construct as Said does in his similar suggestion that ?the
Oriental was linked thus to elements in Western society (delinquents, the insane, women,
the poor),?115 however, is too easy. Pick disentangles national narratives from the general
European one, but the important trend remained, that ?the appeal to superiority over other
races?was projected over perceptions of social division at home.? 116 In Germany, as we
consider the national lens of these projected perceptions, colonial conflict allowed Ger-
man commentators in the press to relate their fear of the wanton masses.
The native uprisings in Africa took the Germans by surprise in both instances.
The dire prospects facing future of each colony manifested in exaggerations of native
numbers and confusion over whom exactly they were fighting, leading to an over-
generalized African enemy. This was certainly evident in the Coburger Zeitung?s hope
that other tribes might be caught up in the fray and taught a lesson. This mentality im-
pacted decision-making in South West Africa, where von Trotha eliminated one tribe and
treated others with similar contempt. These native enemies were called the ?antagonistic?
and ?hostile? ?masses? by one newspaper.117 Another amplified the fear by saying that
their enemies looked like every other South African ?Kaffer.?118 Another article detailed
the atrocities of the ?hordes of Africans,? which were said to go through the countryside
115 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books), 207.
116 Pick, Faces of Degeneration, 41.
117 ?Der Herero Aufstand in Deutsch-S?dwestafrika,? Coburger Zeitung, January 29, 1904. This article
fears the ?unknown thousands? and the masses of this ?feindlisches Volk.?
118 ?Kolonialpolitisches,? Dresdner Journal, January 14, 1904.
61
murdering and plundering.119 The fear of the African masses heightened with each report
that some tribe had joined with Herero, thereby making Germany?s task seem that much
harder.120 This fear also reflected a fear of the working class masses and their growing
power. On the left, the Social Democratic press was less concerned about the size of the
African masses. In any case, they were quick to distinguish between the native tribes,
noting the diversity of Germany?s colonies. Rather, it was the state of these diverse
masses that drew the attention of the left?and the right.
The press was broadly aware of the ?culture gutter?121 that the colonies consti-
tuted. The conservative press obviously credited that with the natural inferiority of the
natives. The conflicts in Africa were the result of native inadequacy and inferiority, thus
their propensity to drink and debauchery. It has already been mentioned that the NPZ
commented on the ?effete? character of both the working and native classes, drawing the
comparison between the natives and the white proletariat.122 A day later, it derided the
natives for quickly resorting to begging and lying. The natives were also cast as criminals
numerous times, as ?plunderers,? ?robbers,? and ?murderers.? These could be confused
in any other context for the poor, degenerate masses of Europe, masses that mirrored the
growing populations of European cities in Pick?s analyses of nineteenth century intellec-
tual writings.123 Some hoped to solve these native iniquities in some way or another. The
Dresdner Journal offered a solution to ?the raising of Africa?s base cultures?: putting the
119 ?Vom Aufstand der Hereros,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, February 1, 1904.
120 See for example ?Der Aufstand der Hereros,? Dresdner Journal, February 1, 1904. It mentioned that
?die Bergdamaras oder, wie andere Ger?chte sagen, die Bergkaffern mit den Hereros verb?ndet haben.? It
also stressed to the reader how dangerous this was; it stretched out the troops, and it meant that they would
have to fight in the mountains.
121 ?Unser Neuer Kolonialkrieg,? Vorw?rts, January 19, 1904. "Schnapps und Syphilis, das find auch hier
die Kulturgueter, die man den Eingeborenen neben der Nilpferdpeitsche gebracht hat!" Strangely, it does
not say anything about rape.
122 ?Der chinesiche Arbeit in S?dafrika,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 15, 1904.
123 Pick, Degeneration, see for example 182-184.
62
natives to work on railroads and cotton plantations.124 The Coburger Zeitung suggested
something similar, although less for the purposes of civilizing the natives than for main-
taining security. For the conservatives, this baseness was as inherent to the natives as it
was to German and European workers.125 To these newspapers, the shortcomings of na-
tive character and culture were central to the irrational beginnings of the rebellions.
While many hoped the civilizing capabilities of colonialism and that these systems of la-
bor and subjugation would, at the very least, maintain security, the fear of degeneration at
home lead domestic commentators to similar notions of imprisoning the mentally ill and
the creation of prisoner colonies. Even the Social Democrats were acutely aware of the
social carcinogens of ?schnapps and syphilis.? Yet, while they acknowledged the rotten-
ness of native society, they stressed that it was no fault of the natives.
Native character, thus, was informed by took the shape of worker culture in the
conservative press. Who was responsible for that, however, comprised the subject of so-
cialist debate. Conservatives, as we have seen, maintained that the natives? problems
were their own; they were inherent to their existence. Such was the plight of inferior cul-
tures, and such was the reality of Europe?s degenerate masses. Somehow their uncouth
criminality was passed down in some Lamarckian evolutionary process. To the contrary,
in their multi-barreled assaults on imperialism, the Social Democrats supported the na-
tives, and blamed their cultural plight on the colonial system itself. Vorw?rts was quick to
dispel such notions of natural iniquity when it reproduced a missionary?s letter deriding
the European settlers as the harbingers of alcohol and bawdiness. Venereal disease was
124 ?Kolonialpolitisches,? Dresdner Journal October 8, 1904. It notes the natives 'b?sen Instinkte" and it
claims that with education "dann find es keine Menschen mehr, sondern Bestien, reisende Tiere, die nicht
allein morden." This is the only paper that advocates not educating the natives.
125 For example ?Zum Aufstand der Hereros,? Coburger Zeitung August 25, 1905.
63
spreading in both the native and in the settler ranks at equal rates. Rather than begin good
stewards of their colonies, the settlers had brought only the ?culture gutters? from Ger-
many.126 The political organ of the masses, the Social Democrats placed the blame for
social deficiencies on capitalist structures. Thus their domestic fight for socially benefi-
cial legislation went hand-in-hand with their fight against expensive imperialism. Beyond
social degeneration, racial language and native policy were tied to economics.
The political debates in Germany also considered industrial, economic interests in
their equating workers to natives. Specifically it manifested as a political debate over
workers and their rights. Tied to conservative, nationalistic goals for rising power was a
concern for the concurrent rise in both the numbers and influence of workers. The class
conscious ?Prussian? conservatives feared that the tight delineations of class would blur,
and viewed Social Democratic and popular moves for more rights and better treatment as
a dangerous affront to the power of the monarchy. Chancellor Hohenlohe, upon his rise to
that office, found it ?incomprehensible that the lower classes should be demanding more
share in the governance of the state.? Even Wilhelm II frequently derided millions of his
subjects ?as being untrustworthy, disloyal, and capable of helping Germany?s enemies,?
leading to the alienation of many in the working class. Conservatives more concerned
about business and industry saw class also perceived these as more than disruptive. Most
subscribed to the philosophy that ?any type of working-class organization was a threat to
the existing social and political system;? some even came to advocate military interven-
tion as the best response to the rise of socialism.127 These notions, however, were borne
out of fear, leading conservatives to forego accommodation of the working class and ?ex-
126 Vorw?rts, January 19, 1904. ?Kulturg?ter.?
127 Craig, 270, 262.
64
aggerated the possibilities of conflict.? This socio-political problem was evident in press
coverage of native rebellion. Proponents of class divide and industry voiced their con-
cerns about the labor and class problem through their notions of Africa?s future. Mean-
while, the Social Democrats not so subtly challenged the domestic exploitation of work-
ers, by attacking native labor policy.
The Coburger Zeitung?s lofty vision of a racially striated society rising out of the
ashes of war was at once a commentary on the natives, on the future of the colonies and
the nation, but it also shed light on the conservative stance regarding domestic labor
problems. It called for the leaders of the natives to be placed in isolation or in systems of
observation, sounding eerily reminiscent of Wilhelm?s screeching calls for socialist lead-
ers to be imprisoned for sedition. It also had clear notions on how society should be orga-
nized to create a strong state, and that necessitated the swift ?checking? of the working
class movement to attain power. Similarly, it required the military and the government to
abandon ?benevolent? policies and turn to harder methods to mold the workers into
?Germany?s favorite children.? Paternalistic society, in which both the native and the
worker complacently accept their position, was the conservative ideal.128 Rights and
power for the workers did not factor into this strengthening of the state. The Neue Preus-
sische Zeitung was also wont to expound on the absurdity of giving rights to the natives.
Simply, it was not in the material interest of the German nation; it was wasteful.129 As
such, the shape society took was integral to the national question. Commentary on the
natives also gave indication to other conservative notions of class and the worker.
128 These come from previously cited articles from the January 26 and January 29 editions of the Coburger
Zeitung.
129 ?Reformfragen des deutschen Kolonialrechts,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, July 9, 1907.
65
The conservative press that called for systems of subjugated labor also revealed
their perceptions of German workers and class structure. Mirroring calls in Germany for a
malleable, weaker working class, the Neue Preussische Zeitung advocated importing
Chinese laborers into the colonies. It outwardly stressed that white laborers were too un-
reliable, saying that they were dangerous and would inevitably form a ?proletariat.? The
connections to troubles in Germany itself are obvious; the paper was wary of extending
labor problems in the metropole to the colonies. Descriptions of the African laborers,
however, were laden with commentary on Germany?s laborers. It criticized the lazy,
?spent? Africans, who only worked to avoid abject poverty, thereby attacking the labor
organizations that crippled industrial efficiency through frequent strikes. The solution, it
averred, was to import ?Oriental porters? which was both practical and moral, ?consider-
ing the industrial character of the Chinese.?130 The Dresdner Journal?s report on the Eng-
lish project to import Chinese laborers expressed similar comparisons between white la-
borers and those of other races. It spoke of one class of laborers and the benefits inherent
to that class through such an influx of new labor. Whites were not superior in the con-
struction of the German civilization in the colonies. They worked side by side with blacks
and Asians, suggesting that notions of race were bound up intricately in notions of class.
Workers in Germany served the same purpose as the natives did in the colonies. That is
not to say that conservatives were colorblind. If anything, they were equally repulsed by
130 ?Die chinesiche Arbeit in S?dafrika,? Neue Preussische Zeitung, January 15, 1904. It called these poten-
tial workers ?orientalischen Laster;? It also justified the theory by saying that ?Die Bedenken waren sowohl
materieller wie moralischer Art. Im Hinblick auf den Industriellen Character der Chinesen.?
66
both, while recognizing their mutual utilitarian value.131 Yet, Social Democrats were also
willing to compare the natives to the working class struggle in Germany.132
In a telling article at the outbreak of the conflict in South West Africa, Vorw?rts
made a direct connection between the revolting natives and the socialist stance on the la-
bor situation in Germany. It frequently referred to the tax burden placed on the average
German worker in its opposition to the conflict, thus placing the interests of their working
class constituents foremost in their policymaking decisions. But in using similar rhetoric
for both the fight to end the unfair system of capitalist dominance in Germany as well as
the one erected against the natives in the colonies, socialists elevated the worker as it ad-
vocated the native. When Vorw?rts criticized the bureaucratic consideration of the na-
tives as ?a type of two-legged animal,? it attacked the conservative perception of the
worker as a tool to be exploited. As such, it also celebrated the native ?uprising as a kind
of revolt against the hippopotamus whip.? It reveled in the savage destruction of German
systems of domination. It was seen as the extension and true realization of the socialist
revolution. Social democratic press coverage, contrary to their conservative counterparts,
related to the natives, despite their racial perceptions of them.133
Maintaining class structure, then, was seen as crucial to the establishment of a
strong nation. In advocating a labor proving ground and in criticizing the natives? charac-
ter, the conservative press advocated the strict establishment of similar structures in Ger-
131 ?Afrika,? Dresdner Journal, August 20, 1904.
132 Alfred Kelly has noted the widespread use of Social Darwinism by Socialists in order to humanize and
democratize Germany. Popular Social Darwinism ?sought to crush superstition, to inform, to liberate, and,
indirectly, to democratize?Thus Darwinism in the 1860s and 1870s was a weapon against such bastions of
the conservative establishment as the churches and public education and later it became a popular prop for
Marxist socialism.? Kelly, The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860-
1914 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 7-8.
133 ?Unser Neuer Kolonialkrieg,? Vorw?rts, January 19, 1904. "Man betrachtet den Farbigen als eine Art
zweibeinigen Tieres, um das man sich nicht k?mmert, ausser wenn man etwas won ihn haben will." "Es
w?re also nicht ausgeschlossen, dass der Aufstand eine Art Revolte gegen die Nilpferdpeitsche darstellte!"
67
many, and it commented on the state of the worker in Germany. On the other end of the
spectrum, Social Democrats applauded the violent tearing down of those classes through
native revolutions. The socialist revolution, so hard to enact for various reasons in Ger-
many, found adherence in the least likely of places.
Conclusion
With the outbreak of war in the colonies, the press rushed to relay the news to
their diverse readership. In attempting to explain why Germany was fighting these wars,
against whom they were fighting, as well as how Germans were faring in these conflicts,
newspapers of every ideological and political persuasion used racialized language. As I
have sought to explain, the press varied in their opinions of the natives: some newspapers
were ambivalent towards them; some reified their revolutionary actions; and others con-
demned them as enemies of order and society. Yet, through the anthropological accounts
and the dehumanizing efforts of the general press, other conversations became relevant.
Political debates found new opportunities for expression, and the scientific fears of dege-
neration and the cancerous elements of society were verbalized in popular forums.
Significantly, some other trends manifested in the press? coverage of the conflict.
Evidenced from the coverage each conflict received?New Guinea covered nearly as of-
ten in the Neue Preussische Zeitung as the conflict in German East Africa?we can as-
sume that the colonies were not a monolithic construct in popular German mentality. Not
only was South West Africa doted on more generously by Berlin, with the other colonies
pushed to the margins of funding, but it was also popularly assumed to be the ?sunniest,?
or at least the most important, of Germany?s scattered ?places in the sun.? Perhaps this
68
was because this conflict was less salient during the sample time chosen?the brutal
murder of Christian missionaries?since there were very few protracted battles. Yet the
coverage of South West Africa remained consistent; the intricacies of government and the
scandals therein found expression in the press, as frenzied East Africans silently wreaked
havoc on several hundred German settlers and missionaries.
The differences in coverage, which this study set out to chart, offered no substan-
tial conclusions. Press coverage of the conflicts in both German South West Africa and
German East Africa showed distinct similarities. They dehumanized their African ene-
mies in similar ways, and they spoke to the same domestic fears. As such, the compara-
tive assessment of the German colonies, native conflicts, and racial language led to a
general conclusion. Racial language was less concerned about racial difference than it
was with discussing troubles in Germany. In this way, colonial conflict was inextricably
linked to the domestic and cultural upheaval in the march to Germany?s watershed elec-
tion of 1907 and beyond.
69
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Coburger Zeitung, Coburg, Bavaria, 1904, 1905.
Dresdner Journal, Dresden, 1904, 1905.
Frankfurter Zeitung, Frankfurt, 1904-1907.
Iliffe, John and G.C.K. Gwassa. Records of the Maji Maji Rising. Nairobi: East African
Publishing House, 1967.
Neue Preussische Zeitung (Kreuzzeitung), Berlin, 1904-1907.
Schmidt, Rochus. Deutschlands Kolonien, ihre Gestaltung, Entwickelung und Hilfsquel-
len, von Rochus Schmidt. Berlin: Schall & Grund, 1895.
Vorw?rts: Berliner Volksblatt, Berlin, 1904.
Secondary Sources
Berman, Russell A. Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
Blackbourn, David. History of Germany, 1780-1918: The Long Nineteenth Century. Mal-
den, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003.
Bruckner, Sierra A. ?Adventures in the Skin Trade: German Anthropology and Colonial
Corporeality.? In Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of
Empire, edited by H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2003.
Chauli, Michael. ?Laoco?n and the Hottentots.? In The German Invention of Race, edited
by Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore, 23-33. Albany: State University of New
York, 2006.
Clark, Christopher. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947. Lon-
don: Penguin Books, 2007.
Conrad, Sebastian. ??Eingeborenenpolitik? in Kolonie und Metropole. ?Erziehung zur
Arbeit? in Ost Afrika und Ostwestfalen.? In Das Kaiserreich Transnational:
Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad and J?rgen
Osterhammel, 107-128. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
Craig, Gordon A. Germany: 1866-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Crothers, George Dunlap. The German Elections of 1907. New York: AMS Press Inc.,
1968.
Dawson, William Harbut. The German Empire, 1860-1948. Hamden: Archon Books,
1966.
Drechsler, Horst. Let Us Die Fighting: The Struggle of the Herero and Nama against
German Imperialism. London: Zed Press, 1980.
Gerhard, Ute. ?The Discoursive Construction of National Stereotypes: Collective Imagi-
nation and Racist Concepts in Germany Before World War I.? In Identity and In-
tolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United
70
States, edited by Norbert Finzsch and Dietmar Schirmer, 71-96. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Gosewinkel, Dieter. ?Ruckwirkung des kolonialen Rasserechts? Deutsche
Staatsangehorigkeit zwischen Rassestaat und Rechtsstaat.? In Das Kaiserreich
Transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad
and J?rgen Osterhammel, 236-255. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
Graichen, Gisela and Horst Gr?nder. Deutsche Kolonien: Traum und Trauma. Berlin:
Ullstein HC, 2005.
Gugnan, L.H. and Peter Duignan. The Rulers of German Africa, 1884-1914. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1977.
Hausen, Karin. Deutsche Kolonialherrschaft in Afrika. Wirtschaftsinteressen und Kolo-
nialverwaltung in Kamerun vor 1914. Zurich: Atlantis-Verlag, 1970.
Hess, Jonathan M. ?Jewish Emancipation and the Politics of Race.? In The German In-
vention of Race, edited by Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore, 203-212. Albany:
State University of New York, 2006.
Honold, Alexander. ?Ausstellung des Fremden?Menschen?und Volkerschau um 1900.
Zwischen Anpassung und Verfremdung: Der Exot und sein Publikum.? In Das
Kaiserreich Transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914, edited by
Sebastian Conrad and J?rgen Osterhammel, 170-190. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 2004.
Hull, Isabel. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial
Germany. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Iliffe, John. Tanganyika Under German Rule. Nairobi: East African Publishing House,
1973.
Kelly, Alfred. The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany,
1860-1914. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981.
Kundrus, Birthe. ?Weiblischer Kulturimperialismus. Die imperialistischen
Frauenverbande des Kaiserreichs.? In Das Kaiserreich Transnational:
Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad and J?rgen
Osterhammel, 213-235. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
Massin, Benoit. ?From Virchow to Fischer: Physical Anthropology and ?Modern Race
Theories? in Wilhelmine Germany.? In Volksgeist as Method and Ethic, edited by
George W. Stocking, Jr., 79-154. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
Mosse, George. Towards the Final Solution: A History of European Racism. New York:
Howard Fertig, 1978.
Nipperdey, Thomas. Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918 Band 1. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1993.
Panayi, Panikos. Ethnic Minorities in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany: Jews,
Gypsies, Poles, Turks, and Others. Edinburgh: Longman, 2000.
Penny, H. Glenn. ?Spectacles of (Human) Nature: Commercial Ethnography Between
Leisure, Learning, and Schaulust.? In Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropol-
ogy in the Age of Empire, edited by H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2003.
Perras, Arne. Carl Peters and German Imperialism 1856-1918: A Political Biography.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.
Pick, Daniel. Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder c. 1848-c.1918. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989.
71
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Sheehan, James J. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1978
Smith, Helmut Walser. The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race
across the Long Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008.
-------- ?The Talk of Genocide, the Rhetoric of Miscegination.? In The Imperialist Imagi-
nation: German Colonialism and its Legacy, edited by Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara
Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, (pages). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1998.
S?ldenwagner, Philipa, Spaces of Negotiation: European Settlement and Settlers in Ger-
man East Africa 1900-1914. Munich: Meidenbauer, 2006.
Steinmetz, George. The Devil?s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial
State in Qingdao, Samoa, and South West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2007.
Thompson, Alastair P. Left Liberals, the State, and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Ger-
many. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Van Laak, Dirk. ?Kolonien als ?Laboratorien der ?Moderne??? In Das Kaiserreich
Transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad
and J?rgen Osterhammel, 257-279. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
-------- ?ber alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert.
Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2005.
Weiss, Yfaat. ?Identity and Essentialism: Race, Racism, and the Jews at the Fin de
Si?cle.? In German History from the Margins, edited by Neil Gregor, Nils Romer,
and Mark Roseman, 49-68. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2006.
Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1994.
--------?Bismarck's Imperialism 1862-1890.? Past and Present 48 (1970): 119-155.
Zimmerer, Jurgen, ed. Genocide in German South-West Africa: The Colonial War of
1904-1908 and its Aftermath. Monmouth: Merlin Press, 2008.
Zimmerman, Andrew. ?Ethnologie im Kaiserreich. Natur, Kultur, und ?Rasse? in
Deutschland und seinen Kolonien.? In Das Kaiserreich Transnational:
Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914, edited by Sebastian Conrad and J?rgen
Osterhammel, 191-212. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
--------?Turning Native? Anthropology, German Colonialism, and the Paradoxes of the
?Acclimatization Question? 1885-1914.? In Worldly Provincialism: German
Anthropology in the Age of Empire, edited by H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.